


Guided By A Beating Heart

by lavachick85



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Adult Content, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Light Angst, Mentions of Suicide, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Profanity, Self-Harm, Seriously so AU it's not funny, Sorry Not Sorry, Violence, What am I doing?, maybe? - Freeform, mentions of PTSD later on, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-03-15 17:20:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 36
Words: 51,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3455462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavachick85/pseuds/lavachick85
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was never meant to be there, was never part of the mission but for reasons unknown to both of them he spared her and now? Now she's along for the ride of her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is set BEFORE The Avengers and the battle of New York. It may or may not completely disregard CATWS, so if you don't like AU's or OFC's this isn't for you. Also posted on Tumblr under the name 'minglebingle', just to avoid confusion.

She chewed her lip as the desk clerk checked her ID, arms wrapped loosely around her ribs. She only had a brief window of time to haul her ass through airport security and onto her plane before he knew she was gone. Before he would start looking for her.

“Your boarding pass, Miss.” 

She virtually snatched the plane ticket from the clerk and picked up her carry-on, a small knapsack containing a spare pair of jeans, some socks, underwear and a few thousand dollars of notes rolled up into a tight little bundle shoved right at the bottom. “Thanks,” she muttered, her smile a little more apologetic than her tone as she turned and hurried in the direction of airport security. The whole way there her eyes were darting back and forth, desperate not to recognise anyone in the swarming crowds. 

Up ahead the security signs were looking more and more like a beacon of hope the nearer she got.

“Come on,” she whispered, shouldering past a group of chattering high school students. “Almost there.”

She was two steps from joining the queue when a hand wrapped around her upper arm and tugged. 

She skidded to a halt, her stomach coming up to rest in her throat. He’d found her. Fuck, he’d found her.

*

Congressman Whitmore was a powerful man. A good man, most would say, but then most would be wrong.

They didn’t know him the way she did. His colleagues didn’t see the side of him that she did, the overly affectionate man who had always preferred the company of his step daughter as opposed to his own wife, despite the fact that his step daughter was less than receptive. They didn’t see him as the man who had sent his wife into a spiral of depression with his less than innocent comments about her appearance, her weight and personality. Nor did they see him as the man who had sent his loving wife to an early grave.

They only saw the grieving father and husband. 

Never the monster he was behind closed doors.

He sat across from her, champagne flute in hand. He ran a hand down the breast of his charcoal suit and straightened his tie, eyes averted out the window as the limousine pulled away from the airport. 

“Candice,” his voice was cold and calculating, “You left your cell phone at the house.”

She struggled to keep her face neutral at the thought of him being in her bedroom, touching her bed, her things, looking for her. She felt sick to the stomach.  
“How did you find me?”

He turned to her, his face the picture of innocence. “Why, my sweet, dear daughter… You didn’t honestly think that I believed your little ruse about being ill, did you?” He smiled at her none too kindly. “As soon as you declared that you wouldn’t be attending the gala I knew that you were up to something.” He threw back the remainder of his champagne and set the glass aside, unbuttoning his suit jacket as he settled back in his seat. “I trust you’re feeling better now? Well enough to try to skip the state, that is.”

She eyed him with barely veiled disgust. She wrapped her cardigan around her even tighter and crossed her legs, her boots heavy and clunky on her feet. She pushed a lock of strawberry blonde hair out of her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. 

He was watching her every move. She felt her stomach roll.

“I was going to see a friend,” she picked at her nails, “-and you mean ‘step daughter’, right?” Her tone left no room for arguments but her step father merely smiled at her. 

He leaned forward in his seat, fingers mashing at the button to raise the privacy screen between them and the driver. “First of all,” he said quietly, “if you were indeed going to see a friend you would have alerted someone to your whereabouts. Secondly, I am your father. You are my daughter. There is no need to label what we have, Candice, no need at all.”

She spluttered out a laugh. “What we have?! What we have is nothing! You were married to my mother and now that she’s gone..” she choked on her next breath, “Now that she’s dead, we are nothing. I’m twenty three years old, I can come and go as I please.”

Something hardened in his gaze and he moved even closer. She could smell his expensive aftershave and the champagne he had been drinking, smell the pomade he had used in his salt and pepper hair before leaving for the Gala in the city. He was invading her every sense and something inside her started to tighten in fear, heart hammering in her chest.   
When her mother was alive she acted as a buffer between the two of them, always throwing the then seemingly respectable man off her trail and for a little while, Candice had the freedom of any newly adopted child. What she wanted, she got it. What she needed, she got it and even if she didn’t ask for it, it would appear in her study or on one occasion, on the driveway. A cherry red Porsche Boxster. Her seventeenth birthday present.

She hated that car. The only reason she had kept it was because her mother had thought it a lovely gesture from her new husband; she was lying to herself even then. 

“Ah, your mother.” He sighed, as if he were merely discussing the weather. “What happened with her was unfortunate.”

Candice snorted and folded her arms across her chest, covering herself from his view. “Unfortunate.” She rolled her eyes angrily. “She fucking hung herself because you got her so downtrodden that she couldn’t go on anymore! My mother was a beautiful, spirited woman and you reduced her to nothing more than a sad, empty mess. She was nothing but arm candy to you!”

The sharp sting of a slap burned across her cheek and she tongued at the inside of her mouth, tasting blood.

“Your mother was more than that to me! If I’d wanted arm candy I would have married you, you insolent child!”

Candice’s eyes grew wide in horror at what she’d just heard. Here he was, a man in his fifties openly admitting to his step-daughter that he had contemplated making her his wife at some point. She could taste the bile before it even reached her tongue and she slapped a hand across her mouth in an effort to stop herself from throwing up everywhere. 

“You’re a fucking monster.” She whispered, horrified. 

Congressman Whitmore scoffed. “Really, dear? You think that’s the worst thing that’s ever been thrown at me?! I’m a man of congress, for God’s sake, Candice, congress!” He reached across the bench seat towards her and seized her by the wrist. “And as a man of congress, I get what I want.”

She squirmed, pulling and kicking as he advanced on her. “Get off me!” Her heavy boots landed a solid kick to his shin and he growled at her in anger, backhanding her across the face for the second time in as many minutes. 

She cursed herself blind trying to get out from underneath him, not bothering to call for help. She knew the driver would be of no use to her in this instance and instead focused her efforts on fighting back. Well she was until the limo swerved and he was thrown off her. 

He turned positively purple with rage once he realised the car had stopped.

“RILEY!” 

The privacy screen lowered an inch, then two more and Candice knew that her assumptions about the driver were true. He was of no use to her; he could hear everything. 

“I’m sorry, Sir, but there seems to be something blocking the road.” He sounded terrified.

Her step father glared hotly at the driver, Riley, through the three inch gap into the front of the car.

“Go. Around it.”

The car roared to life. “Yes, Sir!”

As the car begun to roll forward Candice could hear shouting voices and then the unmistakable sound of gunfire in the driver’s cab. The car slammed to a stop and then all hell broke loose.


	2. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, AU. Happy reading!!

For a brief moment there was silence. Candice looked at her step father, eyes wide and he glared back at her.

“What have you done?” He snapped, lunging for her in the very next breath. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”

She cursed as he landed on top of her, his body heavy and hands grabbing for her throat. She could feel his fingers tightening around her neck and her vision started to spot as he screamed at her, accusing her of numerous ridiculous things in his blatant panic. He grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head back into the window, the safety glass spider-webbing from the force of impact. 

She howled in pain, tears leaking from her eyes as she clawed at the bigger man on top of her. Her legs were kicking and fingernails were digging into the soft flesh of his wrists, scraping and tearing with every scratch. Her head bounced off the window again and she grunted, a less than ladylike sound escaping her as the blood started to drip from her nose and split eyebrow.

She’d never seen him so livid. Or terrified. 

“What have I done?” She parroted, “What have YOU done, you crooked bastard?” She managed to get her legs between them and gave an almighty kick, shoving him backwards and off her. He was sent reeling into the opposite side of the limo, thoroughly dishevelled and in a shocked stupor. Her fingers jimmied the handle and she swore blind when she realised that the safety locks had been enabled. The car’s engine had died so there was no lowering the windows and whilst she was thin, she wasn’t thin enough to squeeze through the gap in the privacy glass. At least not before he grabbed her and dragged her back into the back with him. 

She was fucked. Well and truly fucked. 

An ominous click behind her made her freeze, her head slowly turning back to look at her ruffled step father. Pointing a gun at her. A fucking gun. He looked positively delirious with fear, eyes bugged wide open and hands shaking. 

“What do you know?”

She blinked, her movements slow and steady as not to spook him. “What do I know about what?”

He shook the weapon at her, spittle flying from his mouth and landing on her face. “About the money, Candice! THE FUCKING MONEY!”

Confusion ate away at her as she struggled to remain calm. “Stanley, I have no idea what money you’re talking about – HOLY SHIT!” She screamed as he squeezed the trigger, emptying a round into the seat beside her. It grazed her thigh and the immediate sting made tears pop into her eyes. “I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!”

Usually, Candice prided herself in keeping calm in dire situations, but then again she had never been shot at either. Her heart was hammering in her chest and she was openly crying, her pale face flushed pink from fear and her hair in a tangle around her head, blood matting it to her skull. She was a right fucking mess. 

He looked at her with crazed eyes, aiming at her chest now. “It’s such a shame,” he lamented dramatically, “You would have made such a pretty wife.” The bullet clicked into the chamber and she barely had time to wince before the window behind her step-father’s head shattered into a million tiny pieces and he slumped to the side, blood and brain matter splattering her boots.

She sat, stunned. What. The fuck. Just happened?

It didn’t matter, she decided after a moment’s pause. He was dead. He was quite obviously dead too. She scrambled for the gun that had fallen to the floor in the split second it had taken for someone to kill him and scooped it up with shaking hands, wiping at the barrel with her pretty pink singlet, blood staining her shirt. A dark figure moved past the broken window and the door was wrenched open with sickening force. She had her shot and without another thought she lifted the gun, aimed briefly and squeezed the trigger.

The recoil made her drop the gun and she swore colourfully. “Oh Jesus, fuck!”

There was a tense silence, then the door she was leaning on fell open beneath her and she tumbled out onto the icy tarmac. She landed on her back, her head bouncing off the ground and she saw stars. It was the third blow she’d taken to the head, not counting the times she’d been slapped and her brain was bouncing around in her skull like a super ball on speed. 

She started to sit up but stopped when a thick soled heavy black boot pressed against her shoulder and lightly pushed. She stayed where she was on her back, blinking rapidly up at the dark figure. It was quite obviously a man, the wide set of shoulders a dead giveaway and he was a good six feet tall she was guessing. His clothing was black and tactical and he had a halo of long, dark hair. 

His eyes were narrowed on her and she could make out pale irises in the stark moonlight.

She sniffled, touching her bloody head. “Are you going to kill me too?” She cursed herself for sounding so small, but then, she was. She was barely five foot three and barely over a hundred pounds soaking wet. She couldn’t hurt a wet paper bag, let alone this guy. This guy who had just killed the biggest problem in her life and looked quite interested in making her his next target. 

He slowly removed his foot from her shoulder but made no effort to step back and give her some space. He was crowding her. 

After what seemed like forever he spoke, avoiding her question. “You were not supposed to be in the car.” His voice sounded gravelly from disuse, as if he weren’t used to speaking. It also held the slightest hint of an accent, but she couldn’t place where from.

She blinked at him. “No shit.” As soon as she said those words it was as if the flood gates opened. “I was supposed to be on a flight to South Carolina, but no. That egomaniacal bastard couldn’t just let me go, he had to come after me, didn’t he! And then, he tries to attack me and beats me stupid and then, then!! HE FUCKING SHOT ME!” She panted when she realised what she’d been saying. “He shot me. Oh god, that bastard actually shot me!”

He leaned down with a fluid grace that a man his size shouldn’t be able to possess and hauled her to her feet by her arm, pulling hard enough and sharp to make her cry out in pain. He didn’t seem to notice, or perhaps care enough to stop.

“Stop being a child,” he snarled, the lower half of his face masked from view. His eyes flicked down to the bullet graze on her thigh and then to her bloody head. “Get in.” He shoved her bodily towards the black jeep hidden off the side of the road, his voice harsh and cold as he barked at her.

She scrambled inside and under instructions, locked the door. “How do you know I’ll unlock it for you?”

He stared at her, blank as a sheet of paper. In his hand were the keys. “Can you hotwire a car?” Came the sardonic reply. She blinked at him and he was gone, melting into the darkness. 

She cleared her throat. “Right.” She pulled the sleeves of her cardigan down over her hands and hugged herself nervously, shivering in the cold interior until he returned smelling of gasoline and flint, the sky a bright cheerful orange down the hill.

A sudden sickness swept over her and she moved to vomit out the window but he slammed a hand down on the controls and snarled at her. 

She gazed at him, mortified. “What do you expect me to do, throw up in the car??” When he didn’t reply, merely quirked a brow at her, she slapped her hand back over her mouth. It was no use. She vomited all over her hand, between her fingers and down the side of her leg into the foot well and onto the door. Her stomach rolled as the car rounded the corner and she was sick again, all over her boots this time. 

Part of her knew that it was from her head trauma, that tiny part of her that had paid attention in health class in high school telling her that she had a concussion, possibly even a fractured skull but a lot of it she thought was due to fear and adrenaline. She had been attacked, beaten up, shot at and liberated for lack of a better word and it had all happened in the last twenty minutes. She thought she was entitled to a little adrenaline dump and nausea.

“Are you going to kill me?” She managed with a weak cough once she was done being sick. The smell was awful but the driver seemed unaffected, eyes straight ahead on the road. 

“You shot me.”

She started. “Wait, I actually hit you?? Like, for real?” She looked him over from head to toe before she noticed the wet patch over his left thigh. “Oh my god..” Instinct called for her to reach for the wound but as soon as she got too close he flinched away and the car swerved wildly. She screamed.

“For the love of God!! If you’re going to kill me you could at least just shoot me!” She had visions of dying in a fiery crash, lone occupant, burnt alive whilst he made a quick exit, stage left. 

“… No.”

She flinched and looked at him, trying to actually see him in the dark. “No, what?”

“No,” he repeated tightly, as if confused. “I’m not going to kill you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like you can follow me on Tumblr @ minglebingle :)


	3. Chapter Two

He locked her in the car with the window cracked when he stopped next, disappearing into the night like a ghost. 

Candice pressed her face against the cold glass, hugging her backpack like a lifeline. He had reached into the back and shrugged on a heavy down puffer jacket, bright red, before he left and had thrown something heavy at her at the same time. 

Her backpack. He’d saved her backpack. 

“Be quiet.” He’d warned before he disappeared. “Not a sound.” 

She had nodded slowly, any quicker and her brain would leak out of her ears, she was sure of it. 

He’d been gone almost half an hour.

The smell in the car was awful and it made her feel even more ill. The scent, thick and sour, clung to her clothes and it was all she could taste. It didn’t help at all that whenever she moved she could feet the cold vomit on her leg, in her shoes and if she leant against the window a certain way she could feel glass in her hair, jabbing into her scalp.

The driver’s door flung open and she just about had a heart attack. “Jesus Christ!” The face, yes, face that stared back at her looked nonplussed and she had never seen this man before in her life, but she knew it was him. The driver. The man who killed Stanley. His eyes were hollow but his face read of irritation. He threw himself into the car and slammed the door shut behind him, a cold wind following him into the cabin. He dropped a large carrier bag on her lap and started the car.

Curious, she peered at the bag but didn’t open it. Not without asking. When she did he grunted at her but didn’t say anything else so she took that as a yes and peeked inside. Medical supplies. Wads of cotton wool and gauze, sterile packs of saline and tweezers, forceps and rubbing alcohol as well as packets of butterfly bandages and tape.

“Are these,” she cursed herself for stuttering, “-Are these for me?”

He drove silently for a minute, long enough that she thought he was ignoring her, then answered in a quiet, rough voice. “You shot me. You clean it up.” 

Candice swallowed thickly. “Of course,” she whispered, suddenly afraid and nauseous again. “Will you show me what to do?”

He nodded once, but didn’t speak anymore until they reached… somewhere. It was cold, dark and secluded but they had only been in the car for an hour so she knew that they were still in Boston. 

Once he had ushered her inside he flicked on a lamp and bright white light filled the room. That was when she first got a look at her captor. She was right, he had to be at least six feet tall and he was broader than she initially thought, wide in the shoulders and narrow waisted. He had longish dark hair, almost black and the bluest eyes she had ever seen up close, a six o’clock shadow across his sharp jaw.

Attractive, her mind supplied helpfully and she scowled inwardly at it. 

And he wasn’t walking like he’d been shot in the leg at all. Curious. Curious indeed. 

She hefted the bag of medical supplies. “Where do I start?” She asked as he peeled off the coat, a black one this time. Wait, where did the red one go? Never mind, she thought, don’t ask. You don’t need to know.

He lifted a brow at her and pointed toward the bathroom. At least she could see the edge of a toilet bowl and a sink, possibly a shower cubicle so yeah, bathroom.

“Right,” she took a step and her boots squelched under foot. She winced. “Can I lose the boots?”

He nodded, peeling off some sort of body armour and tossing it on the far table leaving him in a form fitting black thermal and tactical pants, a pair of gloves adorning his hands. He moved ahead of her into the bathroom, light spilling out after him and she could hear water running as she pushed her boots and socks away with disgust. They were cold and crusty and vomit covered and she didn’t want to have to think about them at all whilst she was tending to a stranger’s bullet wound. 

“Fuck my life,” she muttered, rising to her feet. 

The man appeared in the doorway and it gave her pause. Instead of wearing his black leather gloves that he had on minutes ago his hands were sheathed in black latex gloves and one sleeve was rolled up baring an olive forearm, crisscrossed with scars. He nodded her in and she followed, surprised when she saw he had taken the liberty of setting up what looked like a miniature operating theatre. 

“Take your clothes off.”

Candice baulked. “Excuse me?”

He curled his lip at her. “You fucking stink and you’re covered in blood. Take your goddamn clothes off. Now.”

He had the balls to watch her as she stripped off and she was about to swear at him until she noticed that his perusal of her was less leering more clinical. He eyed her legs.

“Your leg,” he gestured. “Just a flesh wound. Stopped bleeding hours ago.” He took a step closer and peered down at her head, nose wrinkled slightly. “We’ll start here.”

She sat gingerly on the toilet seat in nothing but her underwear and as per instruction tipped her head to the side. The first tug stung like a bitch and the clink of glass in the tray he’d set down on her knees made it all feel a whole lot more real. 

After a few quiet minutes he spoke. “Did anyone know where you were going?”

“No,” she whispered, blinking back tears. Her head hurt and his hand in her hair was making her want to vomit again. “I haven’t got anyone.”

“What about where you were headed? Anyone waiting?”

She snapped. “No! I fucking told you that I haven’t got anyone anymore, didn’t I? The last people I had to connect me to the world… Well, you saw to them already.” Her voice had started out strong and angry and once she had finished had faded to a faint wobble. 

He hummed, tugging at more glass and her hair when she tried to shift her position. “Stop moving.” He grumbled. “Why were you in the car?”

She laughed, a humourless sound that was entirely wrong from a girl like her. “Well, that’s a whole other story.”

He turned to empty the glass shards into the sink, then placed the tray back on her knees. It wobbled and she steadied it with a shaking hand. 

“Got time.” He plucked at her hair with gloved fingers, searching for more glass. His tone broached no argument. 

Nervous, she cracked. “What, you like the sound of my voice or something?”

He grunted and pulled sharply on a larger piece of glass. “The more you talk the less you’re likely to throw up.”

“Oh,” she whispered, swallowing her nausea. “Well, the man in the car…”

“Congressman Stanley Whitmore.”

“Yeah, him. He was my step father. He married my mother when I was fifteen after he’d gotten her pregnant. She was just the help, you know? We never had much money but when she got pregnant and he proposed… She thought it was the start of a whole new life for us.” She huffed a laugh. “She thought that he loved her, for fucks sake.” A deep breath. “Later, when she lost the baby they were already married and by then he’d announced she was expecting and he couldn’t just ditch her, could he? He’d look like an ass.. So he held onto her. Like a fucking asset.”

The man had stopped, a look of abject confusion on his face but he gestured for her to continue. She did. 

“He was horrible to her; told her she was fat, not pretty enough, too common for high society. But me, oh in me he saw a gem. He would shower me with gifts, only sent me to the best schools money could buy and praise me even when I didn’t need it.” She sniffed. “Didn’t want it.” She tore some toilet paper off the roll beside her and blew her nose. “I thought he was being nice to me to make my mother happy, but then she died just after I went to college. He would follow me to school and wait outside lectures for me, insist I accompany him to Galas and dinners… As soon as I realised he was trying to mould me into a trophy wife I tried to run. But he brought me back. Again and again.”  
She looked up at him, her eyes glassy. “This will be the fourth time I tried to run.” Her hand came out to touch his wrist and he flinched away from her, pulling his left arm free and clear from her reach. She blinked wetly, not thinking anything of it. “I, just… Thank you.”

He stared at her for a long minute, his expression one of confusion and memory. He shook his head sharply and blinked. 

He cleared his throat. “You need to get in the shower.” He flicked on the water, snapping off the glove and testing it with his right hand before hauling her to her feet. “Get in.”

Candice looked from the shower to him. “Ok, but are you leaving?”

“No.” 

“No?!”

He glowered at her and rose to his full height. “If I leave you could die.” He offered. “You’re of no use to me dead.”


	4. Chapter Three

Candice stared at him with wide green eyes. “Are you out of your fucking mind??”

He didn’t reply, merely gave her what was supposed to be a light shove in the direction of the shower. Needless to say he didn’t factor in her head injury and she staggered wildly, hands flailing and reaching for the nearest thing; him.

He was solid as all hell, she thought as she held onto his arms. He’d gone painfully still as soon as her hands had grasped him to stop her falling but he made no move to help her, no move to steady her. She shuffled upright, her vision swimming and she tried to decide which of the four of him was actually him. God, she felt sick. He must have noticed because he took a step back. 

“Don’t.”

It took her a second to realise it was her who had spoken, her hands tightening around his forearms until her grip turned her knuckles white. She squeezed his arms and what she felt gave her pause. One arm was pliable, normal, but the other felt strange. It had no give whatsoever and she could feel the cool of it through his thermal. She looked up at him, eyes wide and he stared back at her coolly.

“If you’re done...?” his words were teasing but his tone was less than friendly and she instinctively let go, stumbling backward. She saw a flash of silver when his sleeve rode up but then he was covered again and it was gone.

“What are you?” She whispered, trying to piece together everything that had happened that night. Her mind was a jumble of noise and she squeezed her eyes shut in an effort to take away at least a little of the stimulation. It didn’t work. All she could see behind closed eyes was her step father bouncing her head off the car window, him being shot and this… man, dragging her from the scene and assaulting her with a barrage of questions. 

He cleared his throat. “Get in the shower, Candice.”

Green eyes shot open, light blinding her. “You know my name?”

He nodded once, then ushered her towards the running water. She let him push her in and she was immediately struck by the cool temperature and moved to turn up the heat. He shook his head at her, warning.

“You’re concussed.” He pushed her onto her butt and directed the water’s spray over her shoulders instead of her head. “Heat is bad, cold is even worse. You’ll have to wash the blood out before I can clean the rest.”

She sniffed quietly, fingers looping around her ankles as she sat on the shower floor. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I don’t know why you’re helping me, but thank you.”  
He stared at her for a moment longer before sitting on the toilet seat where she’d just been and he pulled out a knife. She baulked at the sight of it and watched through hazy eyes as he sliced open the leg of his trousers before reaching for the forceps and tweezers. 

Candice watched in horror as he poured rubbing alcohol over the gunshot wound on his thigh and then started digging with the tweezers. For the bullet. In his leg. That she had put there. Oh God.

She threw up again, this time just on the floor and not all over herself and through her coughing she asked him why. Why was he helping her?  
He was quiet for a heartbeat, then, “… I don’t know.”

**  
It was still dark out when she opened her eyes and she let out a small moan of pain. Her head was throbbing, pounding like a drum and her mouth felt like it was on fire. She pressed a hand over the thick white dressing that adorned her head.

“What time is it?” Her voice was croaky and soft.

The man glanced at her from his spot beside the bed then looked back out the window. He had a gun resting on his good thigh and his legs were spread out in front of him, boots hidden beneath the small table towards the end of the bed. 

“Almost dawn.”

Candice made to nod but changed her mind at the last second. God knew that her head was hurting and bouncing her brain about was only going to make it worse. She sat up gingerly, holding her stomach as it rolled and to her utmost surprise she couldn’t smell vomit at all. Well, she couldn’t until she thought about it anyway. Once she was completely upright and wrapped in the thick blanket she eyed the man sitting in the corner. What was his deal? He was obviously a gun for hire but why did he help her? Why was he keeping her alive?

“Um, hi, yeah, you,” she blushed at her own stammering. She didn’t even know his name. He looked at her through seemingly expressionless eyes. “What’s the plan?”

He rose from his seat and tossed her a bundle of fabric, clothes from her backpack she noted and a shirt. One that was way too large to be her own. One of his. 

“We need to move.”

He stayed by the window the entire time she dressed, eyes watching the shadows outside. AS soon as she slipped her feet back into her boots she felt his hand curl around her upper arm, the cold hand, and he pulled her towards the door. “Wait,” she whispered harshly, “Where are we going?” She let out a small ‘oof’ when he thrust her backpack at her. He’d obviously gone through it because he’d retrieved her spare clothes so he knew about the money in there. Knew she would need it.

“Don’t know yet,” he growled when she staggered. “Fuck’s sake, keep up!” 

Candice dragged herself into the car behind him and almost heaved. It still smelled faintly of vomit but it had been cleaned somewhat overnight, most traces of her illness gone save for a damp stain. She felt terrible. Here she was questioning his motives and all he’d done was keep her alive, but then her mother always taught her to question everything. Why hadn’t she questioned going with him? She didn’t even know his name! Hell, she couldn’t keep stuttering and stammering ‘hey you’ at him, he was likely to get sick of it and leave her in a ditch on the side of the road somewhere.

“What’s your name?” She blurted out suddenly, looking back over her shoulder as they drove back through the thatch of trees that lead to the road. The look she received in response was wild eyed and incredulous. “What?!” She snapped. “I can’t keep calling you ‘hey you over there’ now, can I?!”

He glanced into the rear view mirror for what felt like the fifteenth time since they had started moving. “No.”

“No, I can’t? I need a name then, soldier!”

He shuddered visibly and hunched over the wheel, over steering as he swerved onto the main highway. She gripped her seatbelt tight around her and held on to the handle overhead, still a little dizzy from the night before. 

The sun was starting to come up.

“James.” 

She startled slightly, looking at him. He was looking dead ahead and if she hadn’t heard him then she wouldn’t have even known he’d replied he was so still. “… James what?” It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him, it was just that she didn’t. At all. 

He frowned, brow coming down in confusion. His hands worried the steering wheel and his lip curled in anger. “I don’t fucking know.”

**

“So, James,” she started conversationally, feet on the dashboard, knees up against her chest. “Where we goin?” They had been driving for an hour or so now and the scenery was beginning to look unfamiliar. They were leaving town.

He looked at her, sharply. “Do you ever shut up?”

Not when I’m scared out of my mind, she thought. “Negative.” She cracked the window and turned in her seat to face him, to study him. Her hair ruffled slightly in the breeze and she winced, quickly closing the window again, smell be damned. That shit hurt. “Well? Enlighten me, Obi Wan.”

He looked at her askance, confused. “What?”

Candice looked at him horrified. “Obi Wan? Star Wars? ‘Use the force, Luke’??” At his perplexed look she gaped in horror. “My God, James, what was your childhood like if you don’t know what Star Wars is?” 

Oh God, she realised after seeing his face shut down. She’d said the wrong thing. 

“James? I...”

He gave a minute shake of his head. “Shut up.” He sighed warily. “Just… shut up.”

It was another hour before she was brave enough to open her mouth again.


	5. Chapter Four

“Why aren’t you trying to escape?”

Candice jumped and banged her elbow on the car door, cursing silently and blinking through tears. She hadn’t been expecting him to speak, let alone address her in an effort to engage her in conversation. 

“You saved my life,” she managed through a wince, “why would I?” Not to mention he could catch her and kill her with little to no effort.

His answering expression was something that would haunt her dreams for a long time to come. He looked shell shocked, confused and slightly afraid. 

“I,”

“-saved my life.” She supplied softly.

He blinked rapidly as if he were trying to clear his vision of something and he shook his head. “I don’t save lives,” his voice was worn around the edges. Battered. “I take them.”  
Candice started to reach for his arm, but thought better of it and dropped her hand half way. It lay on the seat, forgotten between them. She tried another approach.

“Why did you kill my – Stanley. Why did you kill Stanley?”

He looked entirely too comfortable answering her. “He was a thief. He was stealing from my employer.”

She rolled her eyes. Suddenly his paranoid ramblings before he’d died made sense. “Sounds like something he would do,” she muttered. “Fucking crooked old coot.” She looked back over at him, his face shielded from her eyes by a chunk of dark hair. “Why didn’t you kill me?”

“You weren’t supposed to be in the car. You weren’t the mission.”

She knew he was telling the truth. He’d answered her entirely too quickly to be lying. “So you took me with you? Are you taking me back to your boss now?”

The silence that reigned supreme didn’t surprise her at all. She was used to the conversations dying off by now. His eventual reply however got her thinking. 

“You confuse me.”

“Confuse you how?”

“I don’t know why you aren’t afraid of me. You should be afraid.”

Candice found herself growing uncomfortable underneath the weight of his stare, short as it may have been. “So now I’m your boss’s problem?”

He laughed dryly, the sound rusty and out of practice as he looked out the back window. “Now we see what you’re made of.”

**

The car sped through the traffic at breakneck speeds and he manoeuvred it like a fucking pro. Some shitty piece of crap jeep and he was driving it like it were a hundred thousand dollar race car. 

Candice was terrified but when he’d dropped that ominous statement on her and declared she needed to get into the foot well, like, now, she had wordlessly obeyed and slipped beneath the seatbelt and to the floor. He hadn’t steered her wrong yet and for some reason his fascination with her was keeping her alive, so what the hell, right? Do as you’re told, Candice. 

“Take the wheel.” 

She blinked up at him owlishly. “Again, are you out of your fucking mind, James?!” She did as she was told anyway, awkwardly crawling to her hands and knees, taking the wheel down by his thigh and peering up over the dash. She squealed in fright, steering around oncoming traffic as it barrelled towards them. “Holy – I was right! You are fucking mentally retarded, Mr James ‘I don’t fucking know’!”

He kept his foot on the gas, sliding a magazine into the gun in his hand. “Not nice.” He snarked dryly, leaning out the left side window. His foot barely stayed on the gas and she was forced to slide in underneath him onto the seat and lean around his bulk to see the road ahead of them. Cars were everywhere, obviously they were in peak hour traffic but she didn’t know where they were or where they were going. Problem. 

“JAMES!” She screamed out the window. He couldn’t hear her so she swore, a lot and drove. Gunfire erupted behind them and she swerved wildly, her hand coming up to grab hold of the seat of his pants as he flailed out the window, pulling him back as he pitched forward. 

He kicked her in the ribs and she coughed, winded but kept driving through sheer terror. 

He lifted his arm, twisted out the window again and fired once, twice and the car that had been tailing them, shooting at them, veered wildly off course and slammed head on into an oncoming big rig. 

Huh, she thought. No explosion. 

“Move!” He snarled and the car lost power as he slipped back into the driver’s seat, shoving her across and back into the foot well. “Stay there.” His face was eerily blank, like he did that sort of thing all the time and was unaffected. The only thing that gave him away was the white knuckled grip he had on the wheel but she was too shaken up to see it.

She nodded, frantic. “What the hell was that??” she held her head, the pounding threatening to take over and she could barely make out his voice when he spoke for all the howling wind and pain.

“My handler.”

She squinted up at him. “Handler?”

He glanced down at her, gave her a once over and then looked back at the road. “I can’t go back there.” His voice was full of a terror that went deeper than she knew. “I won’t.”

**

Some several hours later found them at a gas station in the back end of nowhere, somewhere along the back roads in Connecticut. 

“Are you hungry?” She asked him as they rolled to a stop. Her stomach ached from lack of food and nausea. “I think I might be hungry.”

James stared out the windshield for a minute, deep in thought, then gave a slow nod. “I think so.”

“Well, when’s the last time you ate?”

He looked uncomfortable even thinking about it, but finally answered with a soft “I can’t remember.”

Candice looked at him, sad. From what she had gathered so far he was a bit sketchy on his memories, was desperate not to return to his handlers (so desperate in fact that he had killed another man early that morning) and now he was telling her he couldn’t remember the last time he ate. He was a large man, seemingly healthy and large, healthy men ate a lot. He should be able to recall eating something at least. 

“Ok,” she looked him over, still in tactical clothing, knife visibly strapped to his thigh, “What do you want to eat? I can go inside-” 

His hand grabbed at her thigh and he looked at her, eyes narrowed. She contained the wince at the pressure he was putting on her leg. 

“Look, James,” she took a deep breath. “I had this plan. This beautiful, glorious plan to run away but then Stanley found me and dragged me back kicking and screaming again. I had an out, somewhere secret and safe and I was going there but then you happened.”

He looked at her through haunted eyes and they flickered down to where she was touching his fingers. He purposely let go of her leg, flexing his fingers and moving his hand away. “You said nobody knew where you were going.” He accused. 

“They didn’t.” She took a breath. “They don’t.”

An expressive eyebrow lifted towards the roof. “Explain.”

“See, there’s this cabin. In Boulder. Colorado. It belonged to my grandfather on my mother’s side.” Her eyes took on a glassy sheen. “She kept it for me, hidden and safe, somewhere for me to go if ever..” she paused, “-if ever I needed to disappear.”

“I don’t understand.” 

Candice turned to face him fully, knees tucked up against his thigh. He looked down at them but his eyes flicked straight back to her. 

“You need somewhere to disappear too, don’t you.”

He shook his head in confusion and irritation. “You told me you were headed to South Carolina. Not Colorado.”

“Well duh,” she rifled through her backpack and peeled a fifty dollar note from her bundle of cash. “I wasn’t sure if I could trust you then. Now,” she looked him over, “Now I’m still not sure if I trust you but what’s the worst that could happen? You could kill me, and I’ve made my peace with that.”

He gave her a disgruntled shake of his head. “I told you I’m not going to kill you.”

“Good.” She flung the car door open and started to slide out, only stopping when he grabbed her arm. “Look, food first. Then we hit the road and you can question me all you like, ok?”

He held firm, mouth in a thin line. “Candice..”

She smiled a soft, sad smile at him. “Trust me, ok?”

“I don’t trust anyone.” He muttered but let go of her arm and she slipped from the car and headed inside.


	6. Chapter Five

“We need to do some shopping at the next town.” She said through her mouthful of chocolate.

He didn’t look up at her, merely continued picking at the pack of cookies she had brought back to the car for him, the bottle of water unopened between his thighs. He was yet to put anything in his mouth, seemingly disinterested in the food she had picked for him.

“Why?”

Candice swallowed her mouthful, a peanut butter cup halfway to her mouth. “Because the lady inside? She asked me if I was ok and if she needed to call the police.” She noted the stiffening posture of her travel buddy and nodded. “Yeah. See, you neglected to tell me I was covered in bruises before I went in and I haven’t seen myself in a mirror… Until now.”

He gave her a sideways look, gloved fingers holding the cookie bag. “Did she??” He fingered the knife strapped to his thigh and Candice eyed him nervously.

“No,” she answered. “We’re lucky we parked out of view though. One look at you and she’d be on that phone in a heartbeat.” He moved to get out of the car and she grabbed at his upper arm, pulling back. “No! No more killing people!”

“She’s a threat.”

Candice wet her lips nervously. “Look, James. If we want to stay beneath the radar then we have to do things my way, ok? And that means no. Killing. Innocent. People. We don’t need a bloodbath following us ‘cross country.” She jabbed him in the arm with her finger to cement her point. “Unless they’re trying to kill us.” She added, then shook her head. “No, no more killing. Nu-uh.”

He stared at her, face expressionless. “Your way..” he parroted dryly. “Your way?”

She nodded, stuffing a few grapes and another peanut butter cup into her mouth. “My way.”

**

“No.”

She shrugged into his oversized coat, the black one, and folded it across her body, swaddling her in heavy, warm down. She’d taken it straight off him and it was still warm from his body heat, which hey, he was like a furnace.

“I need to see what size to get you.” 

He shook his head. “I mean no, you’re not going alone.”

Candice looked him over. He was still wearing the pants he had on when she’d shot him and she could see the thick white bandage peeking out through the tear in the thigh. He wore a slim fitting black thermal shirt, the sleeves pulled down to the wrist and black leather gloves. Then there were his boots, surely army at some point or from somewhere similar. He looked like the mercenary for hire that he was. He would stick out like a sore thumb in Walmart. 

“You can’t come inside looking like that.” She explained gently. “I’m going to get enough looks as it is.”

She looked a mess. Her hair needed a proper wash and was loosely plaited back as not to pull on the wounds on her scalp, she was sporting a necklace of bruising and a black eye and busted lip. She had no jacket, just his oversized shirt and her jeans, vomit stained boots and she hadn’t put on deodorant in two days. She smelled terrible, looked terrible and fuck it, she wanted a bath but James had insisted on driving straight through the majority of the day.

The joke was on him though. They were stopping that night at a motel if it was the last thing they did.

He looked wary of sending her inside alone and she made her way around to the driver’s side of the car, standing in the opening between him and the door. 

“Remember what I said? Trust me. Please?”

He stared her down for long enough that she thought he was going to haul her back into the car and drive away, but then he sighed and gave a short nod. 

“You have ten minutes.”

She bounced. “Make it twenty and I won’t buy you any pink shirts.” She rolled her eyes at his confusion and started toward the store, stopping when she heard him clear his throat. “What now?”

He was holding a wad of cash out to her. “You brought the food.”

Oh, she thought, walking the few steps back to him. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. “Twenty minutes.”

**

She came out of the store wearing a scarf to cover her bruises, something bright pink and soft looking. It was bright enough to make him wince when he saw her and she laughed.

“Don’t worry,” she soothed. “I was nice to you.”

And she was. Everything she had gotten him was in shades of black, navy or red, softer fabrics than he was used to and he was left feeling strange. Out of sorts even. He thumbed at the heavy brushed cotton of the plaid shirt she had gotten him and then looked back at her. 

She looked much more pleased now. Her hair was covered with a dark purple knitted cap, a large flower on the temple that covered a lot of the bruising there. She was still wearing his coat but underneath it he could see a pink, purple and black plaid duffle coat with wooden toggles and she had gotten new boots. Her old ones were in a bag hanging from her wrist. 

“We need to blend in,” she was saying as she climbed back into the car with her purchases. “You’ll need to change somewhere soon.”

“Were you followed?” He asked, eyeing the store. He pulled on the red flannel shirt over his thermal when she handed it to him and ran his fingers through his hair. His stomach felt strange and made a noise that made her frown. She pushed his still unopened cookies at him. 

Candice shook her head. “Eat, then we can get going. We’ve still got a lot of road to cover.”


	7. Chapter Six

James, it turned out, did not like cookies. He did however like the savoury cheese crackers that she had stashed in the bag from the truck stop a few hours earlier. They were small, ridiculously small for a man his size and had cracked pepper through them. The look on his face when he’d tried the cookies was golden and she had let out an unladylike snort, one hand covering her mouth as she giggled and chortled like a school girl, but then the one on his face when he’d tried the savoury crackers… It made her sad.

He’d looked surprised, then a hum of content passed through his chest and she saw him close his eyes just for a second and savour the taste. He obviously didn’t have a healthy relationship with food if he was so turned so upside down over some cheap shitty crackers, but then he looked like the sort of man who lived on high protein and health food. The salty crackers were probably like candy to him. Something taboo and normally unattainable. 

“Good?” She asked, her frown softening to a smile. 

His eyes flitted in her direction but he didn’t answer, not right away anyway. He merely peered into the bag she had at her feet to see if there were any more. 

“Here,” she pulled out a family sized bag of salted pretzels for him and a large bag of mini peanut butter cups for herself. “Try these?”

“What are they?”

She could hear the accusation in his voice and sniggered lightly to herself. He was convinced she was going to feed him something sugary again. “They’re good. Trust me.”

He grunted, one hand tearing at the pack as he drove. “You keep saying that.”

She hummed, content. “And have I steered you wrong yet?” She popped a mini cup into her mouth and sucked until the chocolate melted and all she was left with was the salty peanut butter centre.

He gave her a look that made her toes flex against the soft leather of the car seat. “No,” he mumbled softly. “No, you haven’t.”

**

Their motel room looked like something she had seen in a movie of questionable morals once. Paisley wallpaper, thick shag carpeting and an honest to God mirror over the master bed. What was more disturbing was the two singles on either side dressed in a deep pink crushed velvet with bright red heart shaped lamps in between. The master bed, a large wooden four poster, had tassels hanging from each post and instead of pink velvet, it was a mass of black faux mink and red silk pillows. 

Candice burst out laughing. “Oh my God, it’s like that porno I watched that time…”

“Maybe we gave her a vibe.” 

“I’m sorry,” she managed. “Was that a funny? Did you just crack a joke?”

He flipped her the bird and set their bags down on the floor by the beds before locking the door and checking all the windows twice. He pulled the blinds and repeated his security checks, looking beneath the beds and feeling on top of door sills before he set the largest bag they had on the bed and unzipping it. Curious, Candice peered inside.

There were weapons… Lots of weapons. Knives, guns, garrotte wires and packs of razor blades were some of the first things she saw and recognised, others were a complete mystery to her and that was how she wanted it to stay. Guns scared her.

“Can you shoot?” He asked her as he watched her eye the 9mm on the bed. His face took on a severe frown when she shook her head. “Knives? Crossbow?”

She held up a finger in an ‘ah-ha!’ moment. “I fired a compound bow at summer camp once. Only the once though, was never allowed a second chance for fear of the camp counsellor’s safety.”

He blinked at her. “Jesus fucking Christ.” He muttered and turned away from her to set about hiding weapons around the room. Once he was done, he pushed her towards the furthest bed from the door and took her hand, placing a small pocket knife in it and closing her fingers around it. 

She opened her palm, looking at the shiny silver blade. “What’s this for?”

“You’re a liability,” he told her not unkindly, “If you’re ever in trouble you go for the gut, stab it in there nice and hard and twist, ok?” He shook her lightly. “If you can’t reach the stomach, bite, scratch and scream and aim for the leg instead. Do the same.”

She took in his stern, serious face and then looked down at where he was still holding her hand, fingers closing hers over the knife. “Even if it’s you?”

He smiled and it held no humour whatsoever. “Especially if it’s me.” He scoffed. “Just go for the right arm.”

She blinked as soon as she realised he’d just told her one of his weaknesses but stayed quiet and merely nodded. 

He gave her a soft look. “Good.” He cleared his throat. “Are you hungry?”

Candice nodded carefully. Her head was beginning to hurt again and she was growing tired, every time she had started to drop off to sleep in the car James had woken her up so   
she was yet to sleep more than two hours since the day before. “Can I sleep after?”

He took out a small penlight and tipped her chin up to look at him. “Follow the light,” he flicked the light back and forth, watching her pupils contract. She stared up at him, quietly surprised by how blue his eyes were, dark sooty lashes framing them. In another life, he would have been attractive, she decided. “You should be ok.” He told her. “I’ll wake you every few hours just in case.”

“What about you?” She found herself asking.

He gave her a self-depreciating smile. “Don’t worry about me,” something dark passed through his eyes and he turned away from her. “That’s not your job.”

**

He had no idea, absolutely no idea what he liked, she realised as they sat at the diner’s table. 

“Are you ok?” She reached across the table and touched his forearm, his hands tucked down underneath the table top. He had one of the knives from the table in his fingers, thumbing the dull blade as he stared down at the table. 

“I’m hungry.” He told her eventually. 

“Ok,” she said quietly, taking the menu from the table. “It’s safe to assume you don’t like sweet, right? Remember the cookies?”

His face twisted in disgust and she smirked. “I’d rather not.”

She laughed outright at that. “Are you a vegetarian?”

He looked at her, confused. “I…”

“Ok.. How’s about you try the cheeseburger with a side salad? That way if you don’t like the meat you can still eat something. Cool?”

He stared at her, his gaze so heavy that she felt herself blush and she looked away and held her hand up for the nearest waitress. 

The waitress, a young girl around her own age came bouncing over and immediately set to fussing over James. He stared at her for a split second before looking back out the window in a state of constant vigilance. He was obsessed with making sure they weren’t being followed, something that had made them look suspicious the entire walk there from the motel. Something that made her have to stop him and pull him into a shady doorway to explain ‘no, we don’t walk down the street with our hands on a weapon, concealed or not’. He had made a concerted effort after that to keep her close to the buildings, him curb side and on the look-out discreetly.

The girl, a bleach blonde with an asymmetrical bob called Gina, did not appreciate the brush off one bit and moved to touch his arm. His left arm. 

Candice coughed sharply and knocked her cutlery from the table. “Shit!” She swore loudly. “I’m so clumsy!” She proclaimed, watching James out of the corner of her eye as the waitress retrieved the dropped silverware from the floor. He was tense and the knife he had been playing with previously was curled in his fingers.

She smiled at her, a false curl of the lip. “Oh that’s fine honey, can’t all be perfect, can we?” She chirped, syrupy sweet. “I’ll bring you a new set when your food comes out… What would you like?”

“A cheeseburger with a side salad and an all day pancake platter, please?” She glanced at James and found him watching her intently. “Right, Baby?”  
He looked from her to the waitress, then nodded silently and looked back out the window.

The waitress went quiet and disappeared with a mumbled ‘be back soon’ and she turned back to him. 

He was watching her again, his gaze calculating and thoughtful. “Baby?” He asked almost inaudibly. 

“Yes, Baby.” She sniped, leaning across the table. To an outsider it looked like they were a couple and she was whispering something to him, but the reality was far different. “Put the knife down.” She growled in his ear. “There’s no threat here, stop contemplating mass homicide every-fucking-where we go!”

He was watching her as she pulled away, disgruntled. He set the knife down with a quiet clink. 

She smiled at him and her entire face lit up, “Well done. You are now one step closer to becoming a functioning member of society.”


	8. Chapter Seven

Their food arrived with little fanfare and they quickly discovered that whilst James liked the cheeseburger, he loved the carrot and cherry tomatoes from the salad. And the raw onion rings. He even felt comfortable enough to reach across the table and pick at her pancake platter. He enjoyed the berry compote that came with it, but not as much as he thought he would when he dipped the carrots from his own plate in it. The pancakes themselves were a touch too far on the sweet side for his liking. 

“Are you quite happy there?” she quipped, jabbing at his hand with her fork as he went in for a second attempt at the berry compote. This time with just his finger. 

He shot her a wry grin, tongue curling around his finger as he slurped the sticky sauce from it. Her cheeks instantly went red and she ducked her head down to look at her food. 

“You’re blushing.” He pointed out dully, popping another cherry tomato half in his mouth. 

Candice shrugged self-consciously. “And you’re being inappropriate.”

“How?”

She coughed and took a sip of her water. “You don’t steal food from other people’s plates unless you’re a family member or couple. Even then it’s rude.”

He straightened. “Rude.” He nodded and picked up what was left of his own dinner. “I see.”

Things were much quieter after that, the only sound being the background noise from the diner and the clinking of silverware against plates. She ate until she was full and then sat back in her seat and reached beneath the table to unsnap the top button on her jeans. She had noted that he had finished his food some time before she had and she quirked a brow at him. “Still hungry?”

He shrugged, looking years younger in his confusion whilst still managing to retain the menacing air that surrounded him like a well-worn cloak. “I don’t know.”

“Hmm,” she motioned for their ever trusty waitress and smiled as pleasantly as she could. “Two large coffees to go please.”

**

“You should really get some sleep,” she muttered as she curled around her pillow. He had pushed her into the furthest bed from the door as soon as they had returned to the hotel and demanded she get some sleep. That had been three hours earlier and he’d just woke her up to check on her. 

He grunted, back to her as he sat at the small table by the kitchenette cleaning his guns. 

“Don’t need sleep.” He argued like a man possessed, but his body said otherwise. He had dark circles beneath his eyes and he was pale and she could see his hands shake ever so slightly as he reassembled the gun in front of him. 

“James… Seriously. I’m not sleeping any more until you do.” She pushed the covers down to her feet and climbed out of bed, padding over to his side. She eyed the numerous weapons on the table and poked at something small and shiny. 

He flinched when it rolled off the table and hit the floor with a dull thump.

“What was that?” she asked, stepping back as he bent to scoop it up. “And what does it do?”

He looked up at her with a dark look on his face, then went back to his previous task. This went on for several minutes, her touching his things and asking questions until finally he stood up from the table and scooped her up over his shoulder - his super hard and what-the-fuck-is-it-made-of shoulder – and carried her over to the bed, dumping her on it unceremoniously. 

“Go the fuck to sleep.”

She burst out into a fit of giggles. “Oh my God, have you ever heard that audio book? When Samuel L. Jackson reads it… Holy shit! Amazing!”

He looked at her confused, then turned on his heel and made it a whole two steps before she had latched onto his leg. He grunted and took a step backwards, surprised. 

“Seriously,” she peered up at him through sleepy green eyes. “Sleep.” When he didn’t move she sighed and hugged his thigh tighter. “I can do this all night, James.”

He looked down at her, curled around his thigh, face soft from sleep and hair a mess and something inside him moved, felt strange. He sat down beside her on the bed and within minutes she was asleep again, arms still wrapped tightly around his thigh. He stared at her for some time until finally his eyes fell closed for the first time in days.

**  
Cold. 

He’d never been so fucking cold.

Everything hurt and his arm felt strange… 

He looked to the left and blinked at the crisp white snow, splattered with cherry blossom red blood. His arm was gone from the bicep down and he could see the sharp white of   
bone protruding from the jagged, torn wound. 

“Oh God,” he whined and spluttered in an accent more American than he could remember ever sounding, more blood splattering the snow by his head. He tried to move but his entire body burned with the cold and it was all he could do to lift his head a few mere inches from the hard, icy ground and then the dawning horror set in. 

He’d survived the fall… 

He heard someone shouting in German and hurried footsteps coming toward him. 

“Alive!” Someone hollered in broken English and rough hands took hold of his good arm and began to drag him through the cold, cold snow to God knew where.

Agony tore through him like a hot knife through butter. “… No… Please no…”

**

Candice was roused from sleep by something warm by her head moving erratically and she sat up, disoriented. She looked around the room, confused but then her eyes adjusted to the dim light from the kitchenette and she looked back to the bed. 

James was asleep across the bed on his side, left arm curled beneath him and right arm wrapped around his middle. He was coughing in his sleep, moaning and thrashing lightly and his brow was drawn tight, lips bitten and red.

“Shit,” she muttered, leaning towards him until he flailed with his right arm and almost took her out. “Shit!” She shrieked, scrambling backward off the bed. She looked left and right, up and down before her eyes landed on the utility closet on the far wall. She had a light bulb moment and hurried toward it, glancing back over her shoulder to make sure he was still on the bed. Still sleeping. 

“James!” She called as she turned toward the closet, rifling through it for a broom or something similar she could prod him awake with. She eyed the guns on the table nervously and then her breath caught. The knife he’d given her was on the dresser by the bed, right next to him. “James, WAKE UP!”

She cursed when she couldn’t find anything of use to her and instead, remembering her days in Stanley’s home after her mother’s death, climbed inside the closet and pulled the door closed, but not before she scooped up one of the only assembled guns on the table. If she couldn’t guarantee her safety from him, she had to protect herself. Fuck knew if the thing was even loaded. Knowing James, it was though. Her hands shook merely from the knowledge that she was holding a gun, yet again, in an attempt to protect herself from a man.

He shouted in his sleep, a pained, broken begging plea and then the screaming started. He shouted and screamed until he was hoarse and the neighbours were banging on the walls and Candice cried. She rocked, gun squeezed between her small hands in horror. She’d never heard anyone make a sound like that, not outside of a movie, and then all of a sudden, silence. 

It was deafening. Terrifying. 

The banging on the wall stopped and she could hear her own hurried breathing in the small closet, loud and fragile.

There was a few minutes of quiet, then water running and more coughing, the unmistakable sound of someone being sick and then quiet again. 

She pressed a hand against the thin wood of the closet door and took a deep, shaky breath when she heard heavy footsteps in the room. “…. James?” She tried for something steady, but frowned at herself when it came out thin and weak, scared. 

The footsteps stopped outside the closet door and there was a beat of silence. 

“The gun,” his voice sounded hoarse and sandpaper rough, “-tell me you’ve got the gun.”

She nodded frantically, even though he couldn’t see her. “Y-yes.” Her knees were tucked beneath her chin and she rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palm. She sniffled loudly.

“I’m opening the door, Candice.” He sounded even more tired now than before she had coerced him into sleep and she felt sick with guilt. “Answer me.”

She nodded again. “Ok.”

The door creaked open and there he was, still in his jeans, boots and thermal, flannel shirt missing and sleeves rolled up to his elbows. 

He had a metal arm. He had a fucking. Metal. Arm.

He looked down at her, wet faced and shaking, still pointing the gun at him and something akin to pride fleeted across his face. “Good girl,” he gave her a nod. “You’re learning.”

She let him take the gun from her and watched him turn and start to pack. She crawled out of the closet on shaky legs, taking in his bloodshot eyes and pale face, the slight shake of his right hand and the way he favoured his left, like his dream was still with him. 

“What was that?”

He stiffened a second, then continued packing. “Our cue to leave.”


	9. Chapter Eight

The mood in the car was a sombre one as the sun broke the horizon the next morning, both of them tired and grumpy and in less than personable moods. 

Candice showed her mood as did any normal person, snapping and snarling at everything, few words as there were said, that James would say and James… Well, James just stared stoically ahead and refused to acknowledge her unless he saw fit, which face it, wasn’t often. 

They had been driving for three and a half hours when they rolled into Pittsburgh and Candice insisted that they stop. “I need the bathroom.”

He didn’t reply, but he gave her a look that she read as ‘yeah sure’, and pulled into the next road house. She was about to climb out of the car to stretch her legs when he stopped her, looking around. He eyed the ‘all day breakfast’ sign. 

“Think they sell pancakes?”

As it turned out they did, and he still didn’t like them all that much.

**

“I don’t understand how you can dislike pancakes.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s un-American.”

“Do I sound American to you?” He asked, his accent fading with each day into something that sounded more natural, more at ease and with an eastern lilt that sounded eerily like New York to her. 

She hummed, toes spread out on the dash, bottle of glittery ‘Undead Red’ lacquer in her hand. “Sometimes you do,” they hit a road bump and she paused in her painting of nails, then continued when the road evened out a little more. She had paint all over her toes and some on the dash but she didn’t care, she still felt prettier for it. “Say something American.”

He looked at her, nose screwed up at the smell of the nail paint. “Like what?” 

“Uh,” she laughed, “Um… How ‘bout ‘Holy hardest metal in the world, Batman!’”

He didn’t even bother to hide his distaste for her choice of words. “No.”

She laughed again, tightly capping the bottle of paint and tossing it back into her backpack. “You don’t like Batman?”

He shrugged. “Never heard of him.”

Candice looked at him, eyes wide and shocked. “Are you fucking serious?” She managed after a few short minutes, long enough to make him start to feel uncomfortable. “You’re serious.” Her voice was soft and a little bit sad. “Jesus, James… What did they do to you?”

He wound down the window so the wind blew some of the stink of her nail polish out of the car. He stared at the bloody red paint marring the pale skin of her toes, like fresh blood on snow and bit the inside of his cheek until it bled. 

“I can’t remember.”

She didn’t say anything else and neither did he, but they both knew he was lying. 

**

“Your fella,” came the voice behind her, “He alright?”

Candice jumped sending the few packets of crackers she had in her hands scattering across the floor of the small Ma & Pa store that she was currently standing in. James was outside putting gas in the car and she had escaped the tension by heading inside for some food for the road. 

They weren’t stopping that night. He had decided for them. Pittsburgh had come and gone for them and she wasn’t even sure where on the map they were now. It was pretty though. They had been in the car for almost two days, something that irked James to no end because the trip from Boston to Boulder should have only taken a day and a half of straight driving, but with her insisting on stops it was taking them much longer and he was growing tense. She would even hazard a guess and say he was maybe a little nervous, but then he didn’t show emotions like any average person and all she got was clipped replies as they day grew on. 

She turned to the man behind the counter and gave him an apologetic smile. “You startled me,” she bent to pick up her purchases. She peered out the window he was looking from and saw what he saw; a scruffy, scowling man pacing back and forth by the car, eyes flitting wildly towards the road every time a car passed by. He looked like some sort of maniac out there, his hands flexing at his sides like they were itching to hold a weapon.

She sighed and frowned. “He’s…”

The man cut her off. “How long’s he been back?” He asked gently, ringing up her purchases and the gas for her. At her startled look he explained sheepishly. “My Pa, he spent some time in ‘Nam and wasn’t the same when he came home. Acts just like your fella out there. Thinks the world is out to get him.”

Blundering along, Candice gave him her best worn look. “He just got back.” She lied. “I don’t know how to help him.”

He shrugged. “He has to want help.” He told her kindly, handing her another bag with a few bottles of iced coffee, a small car sized blanket and more of the crackers and peanut butter cups. “Consider it a thankyou,” he nodded toward the door where James was waiting impatiently, shocking blue eyes peering in through the glass at them. 

“For what?” She asked, confused as she looked at the extra items he was giving her.

“For everything he’s done for this country.”

She felt terrible. This man was trying to help them and what he didn’t know was that James was a mercenary for hire and she was… well, she was on the run and a witness to his last hit. They were the least deserving people of this man’s good will. She faked a smile and it was tinged with a sadness that she couldn’t fake. 

“Thankyou.”

He nodded, the shooed her out the door. “Go on,” he said, “Any longer and he’s bound to storm the place.”

She laughed softly, humourlessly. He really didn’t know just how right he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thankyou to all who are reading and you can follow me @ minglebingle on Tumblr!


	10. Chapter Nine

He was two steps from coming inside to get her when she came out the door, bags in hands and a tired smile on her face. She nudged him towards the car but he stayed standing on the steps, glaring holes through the well-meaning man inside.

“What did he want?” He asked, not bothering to lower his voice. “What took you so long?”

Candice cringed inwardly but pushed by him and started for the car. “We were just talking, James.”

He grunted, slowly turning to follow her but not before he looked back inside one more time. “What about?”

She tossed the bags into the back seat with their ‘luggage’ and opened the front door. “Why does it matter? He was just being nice, offering suggestions for a scenic route.” She lied.

He scowled at her. “You’re lying.”

“Yes, I am. Now are you getting into the car or are you going to let me drive for once?” she snapped waspishly, one hand on the door, one on the seat.

He glared outright now. “What. Were. You. Talking. About?” His teeth were clenched tightly and she could see the muscle in his jaw ticking.

“James,” she climbed into the car. Using his name to diffuse the situation worked for some reason and he climbed in after her, slamming the door shut. He watched her bend into the back seat and produce a small red, blue and white blanket, the colors of the American flag and a bottle of something milky.

Something pulled at his mind, a memory, and he stared at the blanket. Why was the color so familiar? It wasn’t the blanket, it was the color but something was off… Something that made his stomach churn and he frowned in confusion. He didn’t even realize he was muttering about ‘blue and white’ and the flag.

“James?” She tried for a third time to get his attention but he was having some sort of meltdown over the gift from the man inside and she couldn’t rouse him. She reached out tentatively, her hand curled in her pocket around the knife he’d given her, made her swear to use on him if she needed to. Her hand touched his shoulder and slipped down onto his chest when he flinched and his eyes flew up to her face. “You ok?” She kept her voice soft and soothing, her hand lightly rubbing the spot where it had landed.

He swallowed, eyes flicking toward the blanket one more time. “I…”

“Do you want me to drive?” He stared at her for a few seconds, long enough for her to ease the car keys from his mechanical hand and she ushered him from the driver’s seat. “Let me?”

He slowly climbed from the car and walked around the front end, climbed in the passenger seat and buckled his belt, all on auto pilot. He gave the blanket a wide berth and she tossed it in the back as far from him as she could.

“You ok?”

He stared out the window, silent but gave a mulish nod and she figured that was as much of an answer as she was going to get and started the car.

**

Later, when he had seemingly calmed down and was more receptive of her presence, Candice tried talking to him about what had happened.

“Was it the blanket, or the pattern?”

He shot her a baleful look and flexed his fingers against his thigh. Finally, “The pattern is wrong.” He muttered. “Stripes. It should be stripes.”

She hummed thoughtfully. “Like the flag?” She could recall his words clear as day and she worried that she was pushing him too far, he was starting to fidget and the finger flexing was becoming more like clenching his fist.

“Yes. No.” He bit out. “Vertical stripes. More blue. No. I don’t fucking know why so shut up about it.”

She cleared her throat and tried another option that kept him talking. God, she hoped it worked and he didn’t decide to ditch her instead.

“The man back at the store,” she started and she knew she had his attention from the way he stiffened despite his eyes staring out the window. “He thought you were my ‘fella’ and you were a returned veteran.”

He turned slowly toward her, face blank. “Why?”

“He said his father…” She trailed off, unsure which he was curious about. “Wait, why what?”

“Veteran,” he said slowly, as not to confuse her. “Why did he think I was a veteran?”

“Oh, well he said you reminded him of his father. He served in the army and he must move the way you do or something.”

James looked doubtful but turned in the seat to face her, metal arm stretched out along the back of the seat, fingers touching her hair. She could feel their heavy weight resting against the back of her head but that was all, he didn’t make any move to touch her more than that.

“Why are you telling me this now?” He asked, tone more curious than annoyed and she gave an internal cheer. It had worked, he was distracted.

“Well…” she glanced at him, both hands tightening on the wheel. “Promise not to laugh?”

He nodded once and she believed him. She’d only heard him laugh once so far but she wasn’t even sure he was capable of anything more than apathy and anger at this point.

“What he said, it got me thinking. We need a cover story and generally, people don’t ask too many questions when a guy, or woman, says they’re a returned serviceman. They’re always too afraid to upset them so they leave well enough alone. Secondly, if anyone is looking for us, they’re looking for two separate people, right? Sure we’re traveling together, but they’re looking for individuals… Not a couple.” She breathed out a deep, nervous breath at the last part and glanced at him.

He looked pensive, thoughtful. “You want to be a couple.”

“As a cover story!” She hastened to add. She could feel her cheeks warming and her ears were on fire. Damn her fair skin and propensity to blush!

He scrutinized her. “How do we do that?”

“Simple things, really,” she offered. “You hold doors open for me, I hold your hand or arm when we go places, you smile at me and vice versa occasionally in front of other people…? We could pretend to be a couple when we get to Boulder so nobody suspects anything. You’ll be a returned vet and I’ll be your girlfriend.”

He hummed softly, then turned to look back out the window and she felt a small part of her die from embarrassment. Of course he wouldn’t be interested in her stupid plan, she was a fool for thinking otherwise. After some time his fingers twitched against her hair, pulling it lightly.

“Your plan sounds feasible.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay with me, people!


	11. Chapter Ten

“Welcome to Boulder, Colorado. Pop. 101, 808.”

**

Candice was born into a loving family, a small one, but loving nonetheless. She had her mother, an Irish-American woman, a larger than life statuesque red head who raised her to believe that even on your worst day you should wear lipstick. Not just something for show, but something to stop the show. She always wore red lipstick and perfume, even when she was cleaning houses for a living and she prided herself on looking good despite the fact that she only had the pots and pans to impress. 

She didn’t know her father, save for his name; it was on her birth certificate after all, but that was ok with her. She never needed her father, not with her Grandpa around. 

He was a big man, gone white with age by the time she was born and he would throw her up in the air above his head all the time when she was tiny, despite his bad knees. It would frighten her mother to no end but she would squeal and giggle, demand he throw her higher every time. She loved it. She loved him. He was her stars and moon put together and the day that he died, a little piece of her went with him. 

He had lived in Colorado, just outside of Boulder in the very cabin they were headed toward for the majority of his life. He had only moved to Boston in his elder years when his only child, her mother, had called him and told him she was pregnant and needed his help. Grandpa O’Reilly had packed everything and moved with no hesitation. 

When she was born everything he had left behind in Colorado had been put into trust for her and the papers had been left in a safety deposit box in the big bank in Boulder. Big was speculative of course, but you get the point. The papers had waited for her until her twenty first birthday and when it had rolled around her mother had taken her somewhere public to lunch and told her everything before swearing her to secrecy. 

It seemed her mother hadn’t trusted Stanley Whitmore’s intentions either.

“You mustn’t tell anyone, Sammy,” her mother had told her, using her first name for the first time since she was five, “Nobody can know about it. Nobody. Take it to the grave, sweetheart. Promise me?”

That had been one of the last things her mother had told her in confidence before she had killed herself.

Her world fell apart and it took two years, one grisly murder and one super messed up mercenary driving cross country with her to start to put it back together again.

She peered through the darkness in the car and brushed James’ thigh with her toes, arms wrapped around herself to keep warm in the cool night air. “Hey,” she whispered, as not to startle him. 

He glanced at her, moonlight catching his bright blue eyes and making them glow. He gave her a nod to go on.

“My name… It isn’t Candice.” 

His reaction was instantaneous. The car sped up slightly before swerving off the road and slamming to a stop. He pulled a gun from seemingly nowhere and clicked the safety off, holding it in his hand. He stared out the windshield in stony silence. 

“Who are you if you aren’t Candice Whitmore?”

She winced at that name. That was the name she had taken when she was fifteen and her mother had married Stanley. Candice was her middle name, sure, but Stanley had never known that. She had gone by Candice since her Grandpa had died; hadn’t wanted anyone speaking the name he’d given her. The name they had shared. Samuel O’Reilly had no sons, just one daughter and she had declared that they share a name… Well, sort of, anyway.

“I am Candice Whitmore,” she spat, irritated with herself for deceiving him for so long. “But I was born Samantha Candice Doyle. Doyle was my mother’s married name - her first marriage.”

He looked at her in the dull moonlight, eyes narrowed. “You lied.” He accused, his voice dark with anger. “Why did you lie?”

She threw her hands up in the air, a little frightened, a little frustrated. “Because I still wasn’t sure I could trust you, James! Hell I don’t even know your last name, it’s just James!”

He snapped. “Because I don’t even know my fucking last name!!” He snarled, fist clenched, gun still in his metal hand. “All I know about me is what you’ve taught me these past four days, Samantha. I know that my name is James, I don’t like sugary food, I can’t stand the sight of the fucking flag and I’m pretty sure that sleep is the tool of the fucking devil, sent to punish me for all I’ve done!” He finished his rant and his chest was heaving, eyes wild and hair a mess.

He’d never looked more open; honest, and it scared her a little. 

“Is that what you think?” She whispered, hands shaking from adrenaline. She’d been ready for him to attack her, she’d completely been absorbed in his ranting and had forgotten about her knife completely, but she’d been prepared for it.

He stared out the window. “Makes sense, doesn’t it?” he muttered, voice raw and bleeding. 

“James…” She unbuckled her seatbelt and shuffled across the bench seat to sit right by him for the first time. She touched his arm and he tensed, but didn’t offer any objection. “You could have killed me back in Boston.” Her tone was light, voice soft. “You could have killed me along with him but you chose not to. Not all of you is bad, James…   
You’ve spent this entire trip protecting me from other people, from yourself. You are NOT being punished.”

He flinched when she draped an arm around his neck and gave him what had to be the first hug he’d had in…. Forever. 

“How do you know?” He asked into her hair, stubbled cheek scratching her soft one, “You don’t know what I’ve done… I don’t remember half of it.”

She gave him a gentle squeeze before letting him go, sitting back and holding his face in her hands. “I just do.”

**

She dug the key from the lining of her old boots and James quirked a brow at her. She smirked at him. “You’re not the only one with secrets, James.”

He huffed at her, his face softening slightly but nowhere near a smile. Still, she thought, an accomplishment.

“I’ll be right back,” she told him and he looked at her in the dark of the car with a look that she knew meant ‘I think not, woman’. “You’ll be able to see me the whole time, I swear.”

He looked out the window to where she was pointing, then nodded slightly. “… Ok.”

She hopped out of the car and jogged up the steps that lead to the outdoor P.O. Boxes and felt along the numbers with her fingers, unable to see properly in the dark. “Shit,” she muttered to herself, “should have borrowed James’ pen light.”

A light clicked on by her head and she jumped, shrieking into the cold night. James hovered behind her, the light in his hand pointed over her shoulder and she instinctively reached out to punch him. He didn’t even bother blocking her, merely sighed and looked at her out of the corner of his eye unaffected. 

“That’s all you’ve got?” He asked her, voice gravel rough yet quiet in the still night. 

It took a moment but she eventually clicked that he was teasing her. She smiled up at him, shaking her head and her now tender hand. “You snuck up on me! And your gut is a lot firmer than expected.” She pouted.

He shone the light in the direction she pointed and scowled. “All the more reason to be prepared.” He told her. “And I don’t sneak.”

“No,” she muttered, “You’re all about stealth, aren’t you.”

He sighed. Again. “Cand- Samantha.” 

“Right, right… Find the box.” She ran her fingers along the wall until she found box number one-three-nine and slid the key home with a jig of glee. The door obviously hadn’t been opened in some time and gave a small creak but everything inside was in peak order. 

Bank cards and statements in her birth name… Well, her grandfather’s name. On paper she had always been an O’Reilly, but school enrolments had her down as a Doyle. She was safe from Stanley’s filth here, at least for a little while. There were also official copies of her birth certificates, passport and most importantly the spare key for her grandfather’s cabin. 

“And touchdown!” She actually bounced on the spot, her mouth open in a silent cheer and James stared at her like she was some sort of escapee. 

“Can we go now?”

She cleared her throat and slammed the little door shut, piles of papers in her cold hands. “Yes,” she turned back toward the car and looped her arm through his. “Now, we can go home.”


	12. Chapter Eleven

The cabin was set along a river far up in the hills, about thirty five, maybe forty miles outside of Boulder itself and even before they were out of the car, she knew that James approved, even if it was dark out. 

“Nice, huh?”

It was a two story cabin with a small porch out front and sure the windows were all boarded up, but the place was still nice. It had character. There was overgrown shrubbery everywhere and the path to the door was overgrown with weeds that were so tall that she almost lost James in them after he’d exited the car to inspect the grounds. He grabbed the keys and a rifle from the bag in the back seat before he left and gave her a look that made her feel like a complete tool for not even considering the wildlife. 

“Mountain lions.” 

She blinked once, then twice and shuddered. “Wonderful.” She quipped, staying put in the car until he returned fifteen minutes later. He tapped on the window and urged her out, rifle aimed out into the dark but his shoulders were relaxed, indicating the lack of danger. He helped her gather their bags and nudged her towards the ajar door of the cabin. 

“Nothing there?” She asked once they were inside. She busied herself with pulling dust covers off the furniture and lighting an old kerosene hurricane lamp she’d found in the utility closet. 

He set the gun down just inside the door and wedged one of the chairs from the dinner table beneath the handle after locking it. “Big lion out back,” he threw back casually. “Gonna have to shoot it.”

Sam, not Candice, she was done with Candice, froze. “Are you shitting me?” She asked, her voice wobbly and small. She looked out the window.

“Yes.”

She spun to face him and found him bent over the kitchen sink, fiddling with one of the taps. “James! You’re a jackass.”

He shot her a wry look that could have soured milk. “Well, you must be the jackass whisperer then.”

She laughed outright, head back and eyes closed. “We are gonna have to work on your delivery, James.” She padded over to where he stood and bent to inspect the sink. It had   
seen better days and most likely would need replacing before the week was out. She could so do that, right? How hard could it be?

“We’ll turn the water on in the morning, if that’s ok with you?” She touched his elbow, the metal one and the plates of his arm rippled under her fingers. It was something that was going to take getting used to. “Same with the electricity. I’m pretty sure there’s no signal up here anyhow and I don’t think Grandpa owned a television.”

He nodded. “You’re…” he eyed her for a moment longer. “-tired?”

As if on cue she yawned and pat him on the arm. “Yes. Hell to the fucking yes.”

He looked around, then his eyes fell on the stairs. He retrieved the rifle from by the door and headed upstairs before calling back for her a minute later. 

Once she’d hauled her backpack and the bag of clothes she had up the stairs she found him standing in the only room with two single beds in the house. He pointed to the bed by the far wall, the furthest away from the door and away from the window. 

“Over there.”

Sam ran a hand through her hair, too tired to argue and dumped her belongings at the foot of the bed. “We need bedding,” she eyed him when he didn’t move. “Linens? Sheets? Blankets?”

At the mention of blankets he stiffened and she quickly set to soothing him, hands in the air. 

“It’s in the car, James. Calm down, alright? I wouldn’t do that to you again.”

He shuffled on the spot, seemingly uncomfortable. “… Thank you.”

She smiled, setting him at ease. He’d said the right thing. Thank fuck.

“Help me find some sheets and stuff and then we can hit the sack, ok? We’ll talk more in the morning.”

**

The morning found her tired and sore after being able to stretch out for the first time after being trapped in the car for days on end. James was missing from the room already, probably downstairs playing with his guns and she rubbed carefully at her still tender brow as she shuffled around looking for the bathroom. It wasn’t until she was in there that she remembered there was no running water yet and she eyed herself in the mirror.

She looked better than she had a few days earlier; bruises were beginning to fade already and her head itched where the scabs were healing, her hair a little lumpy and bumpy where the wounds were. Her throat was mottled shades of blues and greens and her bottom lip still had a slight cut to it, the taste of raw flesh still apparent when she tongued at it but aside from that she felt like she was on the road to mending. She wasn’t seeing double anymore either, which yay, bonus. 

“James?” She called ahead of herself, floorboards creaking underfoot as she padded down the stairs. She found him sitting by one of the boarded up windows, set back in the corner watching the door. He glanced at her when she walked in and she could make out the faint signs of fatigue around his eyes. He hadn’t slept again. “Hey, morning.” 

He cleared his throat quietly. “Morning.” He parroted, watching her pick through the leftover food they had brought with them. There wasn’t much left now, just a twin pack of pop   
tarts and some candy, nothing that he would touch but he watched as she tore into the cinnamon pop tarts with gusto. 

“I need to go to the bank today,” she mumbled around a mouthful of food. “You can come with if you want.”

He nodded. Of course he was going to go with her. She wasn’t allowed out of his sight now until he knew they were safe. “Anywhere else?”

“Mmhmm,” she nodded, hand over her mouth. “We need to get the water sorted out, oil for the generators and a gas refill for the kitchen. Oh! And hit the hardware store so we can tidy up around here a bit. I could barely see you through the lawn last night.” She gestured wildly with her hands as she ate and his eyes followed every move. “We also need to get new bed linens, because, ew, old, and the fridge? Yeah, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work anymore. It’s old and rusted, so no good for keeping food in.”

He stared at her like she were some crazy person. “Anything else?” He questioned, his tone full of sarcasm. 

She snorted, almost losing her mouthful and shot him a sheepish look when he shook his head at her. “One more thing,” she clapped her hands together to rid them of crumbs. “We need to feed you.”

As if on cue his stomach gave a rumble and he looked down at it, surprised. He still wasn’t able to get used to being able to eat when he wanted rather than the once a day when he was with his handlers. He wasn’t used to feeling things like hunger, thirst… Want. He wanted things and that made him uncomfortable. 

She had assured him that it was normal, taken it in stride when he’d admitted as much to her and that was that. 

“By the way?” She chirped as she hopped back up the stairs to get dressed. “The bank is a secure building; no weapons allowed!”


	13. Chapter Twelve

They sat at one of the small cafés on the main street, outside in the sun but sheltered from the cold wind that had picked up since they had arrived the night before. 

“S’gonna snow...” He muttered around his mouthful of food and Sam looked up at him from the list she was making on the paper in front of her. 

“Really?” She looked around, up at the sky and saw nothing but endless blue and some fluffy white clouds in the distance. “How do you know? Did you hear it on the forecast inside?”

He shook his head, taking another large bite from his breakfast burger. It had eggs, bacon, sausage and a sickly lashing of barbeque sauce that had dripped all over his hand and the plate it had been served on. He chewed before speaking this time. “The wind is coming in off the mountains, it’s too cold. You can feel it.” He added after a moment, almost as a quiet afterthought, “-I can feel it.”

She sat for a moment, surprised by his human barometer-ness. “Well then,” she scooped up her papers and pen and pulled her hat back on, tugging it low over her ears. “We should get started with all this house stuff. Don’t want to get caught out.”

He looked at her, down at his plate, then back at her. “But…”

She smiled. “I’ll meet you back here if you-”

He stuffed the remaining burger into his mouth and rose to stand beside her. “No, I’m good.” He licked at his fingers, rubbing them on the leg of his jeans for good measure. “I’m coming.”

She stared up at him for a moment before she noticed he was extending his hand to her, something she had coached him to do when they had arrived in town an hour earlier. The metal one was hidden underneath his large black coat, gloved hand in his pocket and his flesh hand was just there, waiting for her to take it. 

“Right.” She slid her fingers between his and stood up. “To the bank!”

**

She was in a state of shock.

She knew from her mother that her grandfather had left her some money, but when she had actually opened the statements, read the balance of her account she almost fainted. She had NEVER had that much money, ever. Even during her time as an upper class step child she had never had access to that kind of money.

James stood at her side, hand on her forearm holding her up. “Samantha?” He rumbled, giving her a light, almost gentle shake. “Snap out of it.” He was a touch abrupt, but the bank manager gave her a sympathetic smile and didn’t seem to think anything of it. Their cover story was solid so far as they knew and nobody had questioned them so far. Her scarf hid her bruises and she had done as her mother had always told her to and had applied a shocking red lipstick to cover the cut on her lip. It had stung, but it did the job. Her hat covered any other bruising she had left. 

“It’s just…” she swore softly and rubbed at her eyes. “He was my Pa, James… I never thought that… I never wanted…”

“No, you didn’t.” He ducked his head and unbeknownst to him the manager watched with interest. “But he wanted to. What’s his is yours now, same way with anything that’s mine.”

She blinked up at him, eyes wet with tears. “You mean that? Even the rifle you use to chase off mountain lions?” She asked with a slight hint of hysteria.

He snorted but didn’t laugh. “Even the fucking rifle.” His eyes were serious and she questioned how he knew how to say the right thing when he couldn’t even remember his own name. Her only conclusion was that he meant what he had said and it was just him being honest.

She sniffled in what she hoped was a ladylike way and squared her shoulders and turned her gaze on the manager. “I’d like to make a withdrawal, please.”

He smiled at her kindly. “Of course.” 

**

She bought a new truck. It was lunchtime before they were out of the dealership, but she was now the proud owner of a dark blue F350. 

“I’m gonna need a booster seat!”

James had sighed, rolled his eyes and taken the keys. “You can see out the window, you can reach the pedals… What have I told you about melodrama?”

She thought back to last time he had pointed out she was being melodramatic and bit her lip. “I see your point.” She didn’t exactly feel like being hauled around like a ragdoll and   
sworn at again. Not when they had finally found a middle ground. “So… New rule. No throwing up in the car.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Yeah.”

She spluttered at the amount of disgust he managed to inject into one simple word. “Hey! You’re the one who wouldn’t let me open the window! That could have been avoided!”

He glanced at her as he rounded the corner into the parking lot for the hardware store. Well, she called it that but really it was a super huge home improvement centre that also sold whitegoods. “If I’d let you hurl all over the grass, there would have been biological evidence that you’d been there.”

Her mouth snapped shut. Oh. 

“Oh.”

He nodded, eyebrow lifting as he looked at her. “Right. Oh.” He looked up at the monster home improvement centre. “What are we here for?”

She pulled out her list and started rattling off everything they needed and he sighed. Fuck, he hated shopping.

*

Axes were a tool sent by God, she decided as she watched James tackle some of the more wild trees that were growing in the front yard. He had shed his coat, flannel shirt and was now left with a pale grey Henley that was rolled up to the elbows and was sticking to his back and shoulders from sweat as he chopped. 

“Where do you want this?” His voice broke her from her reverie and she blinked rapidly as he turned toward her, axe slung over his shoulder and piles of chopped wood at his feet.

She pointed towards the back. “There’s a fire pit back there, I figured we could just make a wood pile for the fireplaces and grab it as and when.”

He grunted, hefting an armful of logs that would have taken her three trips to move under one arm and started for the fire pit. 

“Jesus,” she mumbled as she watched him go. His shirt was damp with sweat and he had dirt smudged across his face from where he would push his hair back with dirty hands. He was in need of a shower but she was beginning to like the whole dishevelled mountain man look he had going on. She had to be blind not to. Just how she would have needed to be blind not to notice the attention he got from the opposite sex whilst they were out but he was oblivious to that sort of thing. He’d held her hand, opened doors for her and when she’d been unable to see something at the back of the shelf in the hardware store? He’d lifted her up like she weighed nothing and she’d been able to pluck her required item from the shelf, no problems. 

Apparently he was a fine specimen of a man according to the gossiping old women in the bank and apparently, she agreed with them. 

Shit.


	14. Chapter Thirteen

“I got you something.”

James looked up at her, his face cast in shadows from the fire but she could see the look of blatant curiosity in his eyes as she held out the brown paper bag. He looked from her to the bag, then back again. 

“You… Why?”

She could have cried at the confusion in his voice and she pushed the bag at him. “Because. Just because.”

He took the bag, setting down the rifle at his side to do so and peered inside, mouth curling downward at what he saw. “I don’t eat-”

“You have to try it, ok?” She bit her lip, sore now from the lipstick and wrung her hands together. She knew he didn’t like sweet foods but the lady at the stall had assured her that whilst her husband was the same, he loved her homemade salted caramel. “If you don’t like it, I’ll eat it, but I want you to try it.”

He looked at her, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, boots just a touch too close to the fire as if he couldn’t get warm. He soundlessly pulled the small slab from the bag and sniffed it through the thin paper it was wrapped in. “What is it?” 

“It’s salted caramel. Like a toffee but with salt flakes through it. Sweet but salty.”

She threw herself down on the newly constructed log bench beside him and held her hands out, palm first toward the fire. She didn’t look at him but knew when he’d taken his   
first bite because she heard the crunching. 

There was a minute of quiet, then he held some of the caramel out to her. She took it and popped it into her mouth, tastebuds exploding with flavour. The sugar hit first, then as it melted on her tongue the salt took over and she moaned in content. 

“That’s so good.”

He folded the top of the bag over and shoved it deep into his pocket. “S’good.” He agreed and she added that to her internal list.

Salted caramel, she thought with a grin. Score.

**

It had been a week since they had arrived in Boulder and she could count the amount of times she’d caught him asleep on one hand. He would push himself, go running armed only with a knife (or three) in the dead of night around the perimeter of their land and once, just once, he’d come back with a set of deep scratches in his left calf. They were gone within days, but she had seen them, seen the blood on his jeans and mended the tears herself. He’d either gotten caught in the security fencing down by the river or something had attacked him. He was still alive and wasn’t one to tell tales about where he’d been, so she figured she shouldn’t worry about him in that aspect. 

He was currently sat at the kitchen table and she could see by the sag of his shoulders that he was tired. 

“James?”

He flinched and stark blue eyes shot toward her, his mouth set in a firm line. She’d startled him. Shit, he had to be exhausted. She held her hands up in a placating gesture.   
“Have you eaten yet?” When he slowly shook his head she moved towards the kitchen and started pulling out pans and a large bag of mixed, chopped vegetables. “Chicken or beef?” 

He shrugged, unsure. “Surprise me.”

Fifteen minutes later he was shovelling the food she had made him into his mouth as if he hadn’t eaten all day. Come to think of it, she realised, he probably hadn’t. Taking a chance, she reached out and brushed his hair from his eyes and he paused, looking up at her through his brows. He chewed slowly and swallowed without looking anywhere but at her. She shot him a tired smile and pushed away from the table, heading for the pantry.

“You want a drink?” She asked, retrieving a bottle of Jose Cuervo that she had bought the week before when they had stocked the cupboards. At his nod she poured him a slug into a tall glass tumbler and then came back to sit at the table with him. He sniffed it suspiciously before taking a hearty swig, barely even flinching at the burn as it went down. “So James,” she started, “this whole ‘not sleeping’ thing..”

He rolled his eyes and pushed the bowl away from him. “Don’t fucking nag me, Sammy,” the nickname slipped out unnoticed, but not really. “I don’t need-”

She poured him another drink and watched as he downed it too. “Yes. You do.”

He rolled the glass in his hand, fingers meeting glass with a soft clink. “Yeah? Well, last time that didn’t go so well, did it? Ended with you hiding in a closet with a fucking gun and me…” he cleared his throat. “Let’s not talk about me anymore.”

“Nagging means I care, and don’t ask me why because I just do, alright?” She poured him a third and final drink. “Go to bed… Just for a little while. I swear I’ll wake you up at the first sign of any distress. The first time you move I’ll shove your heavy ass out of bed and onto the floor. I promise.”

He pinned her with a look so intense that she felt her cheeks warm. “You gonna sit with me, Samantha?” 

She nodded. “Finish your drink, drunky. I’ll meet you upstairs.”

“M’not drunk.” He grunted, head down over his drink and she turned to look over her shoulder at him. 

“Maybe not, but it’ll sure as hell help you get some rest.”

He scoffed, downing the rest of the tequila in one long gulp. “Gonna need the rest of the bottle for that.” And he scooped up the bottle before lumbering up the stairs after her. It was going to be a long, long night.


	15. Chapter Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning!!! If self-harm is an issue for you, you may want to skip ahead to the second half of the chapter..

She blinked awake and found the room in darkness, the fire having burnt itself out at some point in the last few hours since she’d fallen asleep. 

Something had roused her from her sleep, she knew that for sure, but she wasn’t sure what until her eyes adjusted to the inky blackness. 

She could make out the glint of silver in the corner, the blurred shape of James sitting on the floor rocking back and forth. 

“James?” She tried softly, as not to startle him but the rocking continued uninterrupted and she sat up slowly, pushing blankets down to her feet. The room was freezing cold and she could see his breath puffing out of his mouth on the air and he was mumbling in another language, something guttural and harsh. “James…?”

He flinched at the sound of her voice and rocked even harder, his head slamming back into the wall with each backward motion. Her mouth fell open and she scrambled towards him, hands outstretched. 

“Sweetie, no!” 

He ignored her completely, eyes screwed shut and his flesh hand scratching at the join between his metal arm and shoulder. His fingertips were sticky with blood where he’d torn at the scar tissue around the join between skin and metal.

She stopped still and blinked twice, then slowly stepped towards him. It was the first time she had seen him without a shirt on. Sure she had seen his forearm and felt enough to know that the entire arm was made of something other than flesh and bone but she had never seen the full extent of his… prosthetic before. It was an impressive piece of work, that was for sure, but judging by the way he was tearing at it with his fingers he didn’t agree. 

“James,” she held her hands up soothingly, kept her voice soft. “James, honey, you need to stop. You’re going to hurt yourself.” Even more, her brain supplied and she bit her lip nervously.

His eyes cracked open in the dark and he stared straight through her. Pale blue eyes stared unblinking as she advanced on him and it wasn’t until she was a foot away from him that she could make out the damage he’d already done to himself before she’d woke. 

“Oh, James…” She whispered, her eyes turning glassy. 

He was a mess. 

His chest was covered in nicks and scratches from his nails but his shoulder, where the arm was attached, was a whole other story. She had initially thought the blood was from scratches but a closer inspection showed there were physical slashes from a knife around the metal plate that covered half his left pectoral. It looked as if he had tried to get the blade underneath and prise the arm off completely judging from the wounds. Some were shallow, hesitant, but others were deep with intent. 

She took a deep breath and flicked on the lamp by the bed, nowhere near prepared enough to see the state he was in. A tiny moan of despair slipped past her lips and she rushed toward the adjoining bathroom to find a cloth.

The blood was a cheerful red for the most part, but then over the deeper cuts it was almost black and ran in rivulets down his abdomen until it met the waistband of his pants. His fingers, stained red were much the same and there was dried blood underneath his nails and on his pants. He’d quite obviously been attacking himself for some time.

She felt terrible. 

When she came back into the bedroom with a damp cloth he had stopped rocking and there was a small butterfly knife in his hand. His eyes were bloodshot and vacant and he was resting his head against the wall. 

She froze five steps away from him.

“James?” When he didn’t reply, didn’t budge an inch, she carefully slipped the knife from his loose grip and tossed it far across the room. “I’m just going to clean you up a little, ok?” No response. She figured there wouldn’t be.

It took her some time and three more trips to the bathroom to wash out the cloth but eventually she got him cleaned up enough to see the damage. He didn’t move the entire time, back pressed to the wall, head leaning in the corner… His shoulder was a mess. There were gashes three inches long in some places and they were deep. Some were only small incisions but again, they were deep and messy, a sign of just how desperate he had been to rid himself of the arm. It was all she could come up with; he’d been trying to remove the prosthetic arm and had maimed himself in the process.

She talked him through the process as she cleaned him up and applied butterfly sutures to the larger wounds, taping the edges of them together with tiny little strips and covering them with soft white gauze but he never roused from his catatonic state once. He just stared blindly through her at the wall. She held a wad of gauze over the deeper cuts until they stopped bleeding and then did the same for them, her fingers light and sure the whole time. 

She was proud of herself for not showing just how terrified she was. God, she thought, what if she had continued sleeping and his mutterings hadn’t roused her? He may well have bled out.

“Come on, Sugar,” she coaxed gently once she was done, “Come to bed.”

He complied willingly and didn’t even blink at her ruddy cheeks when she peeled his bloody pants off him and left him in nothing but bare skin, merely waited for her to climb into the small twin bed before sliding in beside her. He lay stiffly for a moment before sidling closer, seeking out her warmth.

“C’mere,” she whispered and his head found her shoulder with little fanfare, no words falling from his lips. He was a dead weight at her side, arm heavy across her waist and head resting beneath her chin. She gave his head a tentative stroke and sighed, closing her eyes before any tears could fall. What had she gotten herself into?

**

She hadn’t slept any more that night, terrified of what she would wake to find in the morning. She lay awake the whole night, or what was left of it anyway and stroked and soothed him every time he would stir. Her finger tips played over the scarring on the back of his shoulder but didn’t linger for fear of his reaction; she’d noted the change in breathing and stiffening of his shoulders. His arm, still slung low across her waist tensed and fingers flexed on her hip. 

She stopped stroking his back and shoulders and looked down at the top of his head. It was the first night’s sleep he’d gotten without the aid of alcohol and it had been a terrible one. 

“Hey,” it came out quieter than expected, barely even a whisper and he shifted just enough to look up at her. His eyes were a clear blue today, not bloodshot like they had been over the last several days and he gave her a solemn look that made her want to wrap him up in a blanket and mother him. “You ok?”

He stared at her for a long minute, then looked down at the dressings and bandages she had applied as if he was only just seeing them. He touched one with pink stained fingers and she frowned, she had forgotten to clean up his hands. He stared at the dried blood, then at her. He was close enough that she could feel his breath on her face.

“Why?”

She tried to shuffle out from beneath him but he wasn’t having any of it. He stayed sprawled across her, an arm and leg pinning her to the bed. 

“Why?” She quirked a brow at him and he cocked his head. “I could ask you the same thing,” she touched his brow, smoothing the lines that had formed there. “Why were you trying to take it off?” Her hand ghosted over the shiny silver ball of his shoulder and he rolled it away from her and into the bedding in an effort to hide it.

“You don’t want to know.” 

“Yes, I do.” He started to move away from her but she wrapped her legs around one of his and clung to him. “Seriously, James… You can tell me. I’m not going to run because you’ve got a little dirty laundry in your past.”

“Dirty laundry,” he scoffed humourlessly. “Dirty laundry is sleeping with your neighbour’s wife, or pilfering money from the company you work for...” He looked at the bright white bandages that adorned his chest and shoulder and then back at her. “Thank you.”

She sighed. “You’re not going to tell me, are you.”

He shook his head and rose from the bed, completely unfazed by his apparent lack of clothing. “No,” He turned towards the bathroom and didn’t look back, “Not yet.”


	16. Chapter Fifteen

“You have to let me-”

“No.”

“James…”

He sniffed and looked down at her, arms folded across his chest, bandages stained and stuck to his skin. His eyes narrowed dangerously. “I said no.”

Samantha growled up at him, her teeth bared in anger. “Look, James,” she stepped around him and threw herself onto the sofa, reaching for her boots. She pulled them on with an irritated huff. “You’ve done a great job keeping us safe but you can’t and I mean you cannot possibly think that you can keep me here for the rest of my natural life!” She snapped and held up a finger when he opened his mouth. “You need medical supplies, James and you can’t exactly go in there yourself, so shut up about it and let me help you for once!”

He glared at her, mouth in a thin line. He chewed the inside of his cheek and flexed his fingers, seethed quietly and looked her up and down. Finally, “I’m coming with you.”

She palmed the keys in her hand and headed straight out the door. Without him. “No, you’re not. If I’m not back within the hour you can come looking for me.”

**

The woman behind the counter in the town’s pharmacy was watching her like a hawk as she went about gathering enough medical supplies to patch up an entire platoon. Her basket was hanging from her elbow and was weighed down with gauze packets, non-stick dressings, steri-strips, bandages and at least four different types of ointments. She read the label on the peroxide bottle and chewed her lip, then dropped it into the basket as well.

“Is there something I can help you with, Honey?”

Sam jumped and spun to face the direction the question had come from and finally noticed the woman behind the counter. She was at least her mother’s age, or how old her mother would have been anyway and she had dark brown hair streaked with silver, her dusty pink blouse buttoned to the hollow of her throat. She stepped from behind the counter and Sam’s eyes were drawn to the heavy hiking boots on her feet, obviously old and well loved, then to the cane she used to get around.

“Um,” she looked at the contents of her basket and gave the woman a shy smile. “My boyfriend… He caught himself on the perimeter fencing and we don’t even have a fully stocked first aid kit.” She halfway lied.

The woman looked startled. “If you need all of that for him then I’m almost certain your boyfriend should be in the hospital, Hon.”

Sam frowned. She knew that already but how was she supposed to explain that her ‘boyfriend’ was actually a gun-for-hire killer. With a metal arm. And a rather significant case of PTSD. And amnesia. Shit, she was taking too long to answer!

“He refuses to go,” she gestured to the basket. “This is the only way I can help him and I just-” she stopped, sniffled unintentionally and then a hysterical laugh slipped out. “I don’t even know how to stitch him up!”

The woman, Martha her name tag read, looked a little less wary now. She put her hand on Sam’s shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. “Ok, Hon… Most important question now is when did it happen and is he still bleeding?”

She sniffled and blotted her nose on the thick sleeve of her coat. “Um, last night. It happened last night and no, he’s not.” She looked at her shaking hands. Fuck, she was a bad liar. “There’s a lot of oozing though. The wounds are clean.”

“Ok.” She smiled at her. “Come with me, I’ve got just the thing.”

Fifteen minutes later Sam was leaving the pharmacy with half a dozen bags in her hands, a fully stocked first aid kit and a curse on her lips. It had been more than an hour since she’d left the cabin.

He was either going to hunt her down and hurt her or kill her. Wonderful.

Twenty five minutes later found her driving towards the cabin. She was ten miles from home when she slammed her foot on the brake and the car screeched to a halt, rear end fishtailing into the dirt on the side of the road. She grasped the wheel in both hands and stared, first bemused then stunned.

James was standing in the middle of the road in nothing but a pair of loose sweats and the first snow of the season was beginning to fall. His feet were bare and he was staring down the truck like a wild animal.

He’d come looking for her. Fuck it all.

She unbuckled her seat belt and flung the door open, sliding out onto the tarmac and held the edge of the truck’s door in her fingers.

He didn’t move to come toward her, so she took a slow, measured step toward him.

“James?”

He blinked at her, looked down and then his eyes rose look over her face. He twitched. “I know you?”

Samantha blinked and took another slow step toward him, stopping in the middle of the road. “Yeah, you do. James, are you alright? Where are your clothes?”

He cocked his head at her, then laid the palms of his hands across his bare belly. He looked down at himself and then up at her. “Candice…”

“Sam,” she corrected gently, “My name is Samantha. You call me Sammy when you’re mad at me. Candice is my middle name.”

He straightened. “Samantha Candice Doyle, otherwise known as Candice Whitmore.” His voice was strained, monotone and he looked confused. “I know you…” He repeated, this time more sure of himself.

She nodded slightly. “Yeah, Sweetie, you do.” She stepped closer and raised her hand toward him, slowly edging nearer and nearer until she was two steps away. “Aren’t you cold, James?” She asked him softly, wary of spooking him. He was giving off a strange vibe, his body language screaming of confusion and fear.

As if on cue he shivered violently and squeezed his eyes closed, jaw clenched and then a calm took over him and he was still. Blue eyes opened and he stared down at her, face a mask of indifference.

“You were gone.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It took longer than I anticipated getting into town itself.” She gestured to the truck still idling twenty feet away. “Come with me?” Her hand still hung in the air in front of him the whole time.

He looked at it, then at the truck. After what seemed like a lifetime he slowly slipped his metal fingers into her warm palm and took a step in the truck’s direction. She squeezed his fingers in hers, unsure of what he could feel and what he couldn’t and fell into step beside him.

What on earth had happened in the time she had been gone?

**

The wounds were an angry red, torn at the edges and weeping freely now. Sam felt sick just thinking about them, but seeing them up close was almost too much to handle. He’d done it for her though, he’d cleaned her up with a clinical precision when he’d first rescued her so helping him patch himself up was the least she could do.

“Ok, lift your arm.” She said quietly, tweezing at the bloodied steri-strips so she could replace them with fresh, clean ones. “Good, now relax. Good. Don’t move.”

He sat silently, unmoving until she swabbed over the angrier looking wounds with peroxide and started to dab Neosporin along the seams. He gave a full bodied jerk and his head spun to look at her, eyes dark.

“I can get by on my own, you know.”

She hummed, eyes flitting up to meet his. “But you don’t have to.” She mumbled softly, finger smoothing more of the cool gel over his wounds.

He startled. “What did you say?”

Sam quirked a brow. “… You don’t have to?”

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head almost violently, body shaking. At first she thought he was having some kind of seizure, but then he stilled and his eyes cracked open, bluer than before, body covered in sweat.

“He was smaller…”

Sam set down the wad of gauze she’d just picked up and took his face in her hands. “James? James, who was smaller?”

He blinked rapidly. “I don’t- I don’t know. There was blue… He wore blue.” His hands gripped the edge of the table top and the wood creaked beneath his metal fingers. His feet twitched against the leg of the table and Sam slipped in between his knees, still holding his face. His voice came out as a low, strangled whine. “He was smaller.”

“It’s ok. You’re ok.” She pressed her forehead against his shoulder and breathed in deeply, coaxing him to do the same. After a moment he copied her, air leaving him in slow, steady breaths. “You’re ok.”


	17. Chapter Sixteen

It was later that night that she found him sitting outside in the snow, fire roaring in front of him, palms turned up against the warmth of the flames. He wore a thin black t-shirt and jeans, boots on his feet. She wasn’t sure what had happened to him whilst she was out that morning but it had been something significant. He’d been having flashbacks all day; sometimes he would speak aloud about them, others he would shut down and stare vacantly at the wall over.

She was worried.

She made some noise as she walked up behind him and when she reached out to touch his shoulder he barely even flinched, merely glanced back at her over his shoulder. “You ok?” She asked, coming round to sit beside him on the bench.

He looked up at the snow-cloud covered sky and squinted. “I remember falling.” He said gruffly after a moment, “So much white and blood and blue.” He looked down at his hands, fingers spread wide, one flesh hand, one metal. “They did something to me… I shouldn’t have survived that fall.”

Sam frowned. “Do you remember anything else?” she slipped her fingers into his right hand and squeezed lightly, brushing her thumb over his knuckles.

He scoffed, a dark, hollow sound. “Do you want to know how I remember the mother who tried to use her son as a shield?” He was growing agitated. “How I remember his sticky blood on my face and how I remember not caring,” he pulled his hand free of hers and ran fingers through tangled hair. “I remember-”

“Stop.”

He cast a sharp look in her direction, eyes glittering dangerously and she was struck by just how dangerous this man actually was. He was walking a fine line between anger and control and she was poking the bear with a very short, very sharp stick.

She tried to forget that he had just admitted to killing a child.

“Do you remember anything about you? Not the things you’ve done, you. Do you remember anything about before?”

He eyed her briefly before turning his gaze back to the jumping flames. “… No.”

She nodded, more for her own benefit than his and they sat in silence for a further ten minutes before she stood up and looked down at him. His eyes were shadowed and he looked to have to beginnings of dark circles beneath them.

“I think I’m going to go in to bed,” her voice was soft and her hand brushed over his head as she started inside. “I expect to see you later.”

It was another two hours before she was roused from a light sleep as he crept into the fire lit bedroom, shedding his clothes as he went until he was bare chested and standing by the bed. She blinked up at him, sleepy eyed and barely conscious.

“What’s wrong?” She mumbled, propping herself up on an elbow. She could see the faintly blue tinge to his mouth and suddenly she was wide awake. “Jesus, James… What happened to the fire? Are you insane? God, come here.”

He didn’t move, merely stared at her.

“James,” she tried again, firmer this time, “Come. Here.” Success. He moved this time, toeing his boots off and sliding into the bed beside her. He felt like an iceberg, the cold radiating off him and creeping across the bed onto her side and into her skin. She shivered. He had to be hypothermic. He’d been outside for hours and god only knew how long ago the fire had burnt out.

“Alright,” she mumbled and stripped off her over-sized flannel leaving her in her underwear and nothing else. She shuffled back down the bed and curled into him, pulling the covers over them. “You have to stay put, alright? No leaving before dawn, you hear me?”

He rolled towards her and nodded into her neck, freezing cold arm winding around her waist.

They stayed that way until just after the sun came up, the outside world blanketed in crisp white snow, smouldering ashes the only indication that either of them had ever been there.

**

It would take a few days for the wounds to begin to heal.

The yard was covered in a blanket of white, a good foot deep in places and she saw her first mountain lion in search of somewhere warm to sleep. It lingered in the yard for a good hour before James returned from the woods and shot at the poor thing. It was the first time she had seen him miss a target, but then she realized that he had aimed to miss the beast, he just wanted to scare it.

“Friend of yours?” She asked with a laugh as he hauled himself through the front door after shooting at it and he shot her a look that could sour milk.

He scoffed. “Hardly. That’s the one that tried to take a bite outta me.”

She smiled at the slip of the tongue. His speech patterns were growing more and more casual and he sounded like he’d just stepped off the streets of New York City. She suspected it was where he hailed from, but then when she’d asked him he couldn’t tell her. All he could remember was cold and snow, pain and blood.

He had finally told her about the dreams but she was still in the dark about his arm. Apparently he was too. He remembered having two normal arms, but then he remembered having one normal, one cybernetic as well… He couldn’t recall the exact time when he’d acquired his prosthetic limb.

“How’s your chest?” She asked him as he dumped a load of wood by the fireplace. She could see the darker spots on his shirt and if he wasn’t going to mention it to her then she was most definitely going to mention it to him.

He barely even faltered. “Fine.” He met her eye and lied through his teeth.

She folded her arms across her chest and leveled him with a glare that she had picked up from her mother. “James, I saw you scratching at them this morning when you got up.” And she had. It had still been dim in the room but not too dark for her to miss the way he hesitated over getting out of bed and scratched at the wounds on his chest with a feral scowl on his face. She waved at him dismissively. “Take your shirt off.”

“Excuse me?” He snapped, straightening.

Samantha didn’t blink twice. “It’s covered in blood spots and it’s going to stink up the place.”

He smirked at her, a dark look that looked entirely too at home on his face. “Oh, so that’s how it is, huh?” He shrugged out of his jacket nonetheless and pulled at his shirt, hissing when he discovered it had indeed stuck to his skin. “This payback, Sweetheart?”

She threw her head back and laughed. “Why of course it is, Honey. Now c’mon. Strip.”

He worked his fingers beneath the fabric and peeled it away from the oozing wounds, dumping the soiled shirt on the floor at his feet. He took a step back and sat in the chair by the table, facing the door.

She frowned. The edges of the wounds were an angry, shiny red and there was a clear discharge coming from some of the deeper ones. “Have you been cleaning these?” She pressed the backs of her fingers along the red strip of flesh and was concerned with how warm he felt. She touched his brow and swore at him when he tried to bat her hand away. “James, seriously. Do you feel sick?”

He frowned, surprised by her tone. She was hardly ever so serious with him, even when she was scolding him for tracking mud through her pretty little house. He thought about it. Did he feel sick? Sure, he ached and he was hot more often than not, but he’d just put it down to the change in weather and being warm for once. He was so used to cold and damp that the warmth in the cabin made him feel strange. He liked it, but it made him feel odd.

“Sick, how?” He asked finally, shrinking away from her cool hand. “You’re cold.” He complained absently.

Sam’s frown grew even deeper at that. She didn’t feel cold and she had been inside all day. She ran her hands under the warm water to heat them up a little, then pat his brow again. He was feverish. Fuck.

“James, I need you to listen to me,” she bent over at the waist to inspect the oozing wound where his pectoral and the shoulder met. Pressing on it met her with a thicker, darker discharge as well as a little blood. Double fuck. “Have you been cleaning these? Like I showed you?” At his blank look she cursed. “Damnit James!!”

“What the fuck is the problem, woman?!” He shouted back at her, flinching violently when she prodded one of the angrier looking cuts. His hand flew up instinctively to push away the source of the pain and he caught her wrist with his metal hand. Tears immediately sprung into her eyes and he recoiled as if she’d struck him. He’d hurt her. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. “Sammy…”

She sniffled violently and shook her head, blinking tears away. “It’s fine.” She shook the injured limb at her side and shrugged it off. “It’s ok.” She moved to touch him again, this time slowly so he knew what she was going to do. “I think you have an infection.” She told him and suddenly it all made sense.

The aches. The sharp stabbing pains. The hot and cold flushes and the sweating even when he was outside in the snow.

“I need to clean you up, alright?”

He nodded, eyeing her wrist as she walked away and disappeared into the hallway. It was already bruising. When she returned she held a brown glass bottle, peroxide, and a wad of gauze three inches thick. She peeled off a square and doused it in peroxide, then wiped it over the first wound.

He sighed. It was ok… Until it wasn’t. The stinging started when the bubbling started and he sucked in a sharp breath, teeth bared. It smelled awful.

She glanced up at his face and set the rest of the gauze down on the table. “It’s just a little sting, it’ll pass.” She soothed, hand on his cheek. “Just breathe.” She eyed him for a minute, green eyes flicking from his eyes to his mouth, then she leaned in and did the thing she’d been wanting to do for weeks.

She kissed him.

He didn’t react.

She pulled away from him and blinked only to find him watching her with a strange look on his face. Oh my God, she thought as she pulled back even further, what have I done?

“I’ll just,” she stammered much to her own horror and she rubbed at her mouth where she could still feel his lips against hers, “I’ll just leave you to it.” Her cheeks were flaming with embarrassment as she fled the room and headed for the bedroom, pulling the door shut with a quiet click. “Shit,” she muttered as she paced in front of the bed. “Shit, fuck, shit!”

After a solid ten minutes of said behavior she was sure he wasn’t going to follow and she dropped onto the bed they had been sharing for the last four nights. It smelled of him and she let out a deep, bone weary sigh, tears springing into her eyes unbidden. It wasn’t until she heard the cabin doors open and close some time later that she let them fall. She’d ruined everything. He hadn’t shown any hint of interest in her since they had been at the cabin, or even the entire time she’d been with him so what had made her think that kissing him was a good idea?

“It wasn’t a good idea.” She told herself with a quiet curse, hands rubbing her eyes furiously. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

She eyed the darkening bruise on her wrist and touched it lightly. It didn’t really hurt, it was just tender but maybe that was his way of telling her to back off? Maybe she was being too tactile with him and he didn’t like it? Either way, she had messed up and now she was stuck in the bedroom until she found the guts to face him again.


	18. Chapter Seventeen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand this one is where I'm supposed to change the rating, but it wont save when I edit it! I apologise in advance if its dodgy... *hides*

The sky was falling dark when she opened her eyes again, blinking against the pale afternoon light. There was a fire flickering in the corner warming the room and she pushed the blankets down to her feet, brow creased in confusion. She hadn’t lit a fire.

“You were cold to touch.”

She jumped a mile, falling off the bed in the process and she had a brief moment of ‘this is going to hurt’ before she closed her eyes to prepare for the landing only it never came. Instead she felt two hands circle her waist and pull her upright into a hard chest. She grabbed at his hands instinctively and held on for dear life whilst her heart slowed back down in her chest.

“Jesus, James! You need a fucking bell!” She breathed with a nervous laugh. He was a solid presence at her back, throwing off warmth like a furnace. She pulled away from him and cleared her throat. “Are you hungry? I’ll make dinner.” And she rushed from the room.

She had her head stuck in the fridge when he appeared behind her again, a hand touching her shoulder.

“Samantha…”

She ignored him, chattering to herself about what they could eat and how long would it take to drive into town to get a roasting chicken because she hadn’t had one in a long time and-

“Sam.”

She spun to face him and took in the look on his face. He looked annoyed. “You know what, you’re right. No chicken. I’m just going to…” she paused, looking anywhere but at him. “I’m going to have a shower. You decide what you want, then I’ll cook.”

She didn’t know how she got past him without him grabbing her but he tried, fingers missing her by an inch or less as she darted by him and scaled the steps two at a time.

James rolled his eyes and followed her at a more leisurely pace, letting her get her things and disappear into the bathroom before he followed her in there and locked the door.

She was part way undressed, sweatshirt on the floor and wearing nothing but her bra, boots and unbuttoned jeans and when she saw him she froze like a deer in headlights. She spluttered and tried to cover herself.

“James!”

He shook his head at her, advancing slowly until he had her backed into the corner of the shower. “Now would you just fucking listen to me?” He growled, stepping into the shower after her. “I’ve been trying to talk to you all afternoon… First you kiss me, color me surprised!” He snarked, “Then, you do a fucking runner and hide for a good solid three hours. I try to do something nice like light a fire and stop you from breaking your face and you run again! Now you won’t even look at me and keep running from room to fucking room just to get away!” By the time he’d finished ranting he was shouting at her and his hands were flailing wildly, something she’d never seen him do before.

“James, I’m sor-”

“Don’t!” He snarled, finger in her face. “Don’t you fucking dare apologize!”

She could feel the tears of humiliation threatening to form, the back of her throat tightening pathetically. “Then what do you want??” She hugged herself tighter.

He stared at her for a long minute then grabbed her face in both hands and bent down, slanting his mouth over hers in a fierce kiss that left her breathless. He was all teeth and tongue, hands buried in her hair and pulling. When he finally let her go for air he took a step back but held onto her head so she couldn’t run again.

He gave her a light shake, fingers tightening in her hair. “Don’t run away from me again.”

She nodded, panting with her bottom lip caught in her teeth. She reached out tentatively to touch his waist, fingers curling in the soft fabric of his t-shirt. He came to her willingly this time, his thick thigh sliding between hers and lifting her off her feet until they were at eye level. His pupils were blown wide open and there was a faint ring of blue surrounding them. His hands wandered until they came to rest on her ribs, thumbs brushing the under wire of her bra.

“I wasn’t expecting…” he trailed off, looking her over. His thumbs stroked the underside of her breasts. “I’m allowed to want.”

She nodded slowly, hands flat against his sides. “Yeah, you are.” She licked her lips, still straddling his thigh. Her booted feet hung a good few inches from the ground and she wriggled against him, her bra covered breasts rubbing against his chest, fingers dragging against soft cotton until they found warm skin. He sucked in a short breath at the sensation and hitched his thigh even higher, dropping her solidly against his leg and he ground against her. She whimpered, a soft noise that came from low in her throat and his eyes flicked up to her face.

“Did I hurt you?” He tangled a hand in her hair and tugged at the long, strawberry strands, fisting them around metal fingers. He gave a light pull and her head tipped back to expose her throat. Sharp teeth found the delicate skin beneath her jaw and bit down.

Samantha’s eyes fluttered shut. Fuck no, he hadn’t hurt her. She shook her head and rolled her hips experimentally, teeth hugging her bottom lip when the seam of her jeans rubbed her just right, his heat leeching through her remaining clothing and into her. “More…”

His flesh hand slipped lower down over her ribs and fell on her hip, pushing underneath the worn denim of her jeans to palm her ass. He dragged her closer with one hand and pulled on her hair with the other. Teeth dragged against her throat and she arched against him, a sharp, needy moan slipping from her lips as blunt fingernails dug into her behind beneath her underwear.

“I’m going to get you naked,” he murmured into her neck, “-and I’m going to fuck you until you scream for me.” His tongue swept across her bottom lip, filthy and wet and he nuzzled her face. “You want that, Sammy?” His voice was low and smoky against her skin and he let go of her hair to pull her leg around his waist, pinning her to the wall with him between her thighs. “Do you??” He ground against the crotch of her jeans and she could feel him everywhere.

“Please,” she whispered and eyed him through hazy eyes, “Any way you want, please…”

He tugged his hand free of her pants and held her against him as he unlocked the bathroom door, stepping out into the dimly lit bedroom and dumping her on the bed with a bounce. She looked up at him, propped on her elbows as he stripped off his shirt and threw it over his shoulder, lumbering closer as fingers worked at his belt. Absently, she noted that his wounds looked cleaner now, though they were still angry looking.

He pulled at her boots until they hit the floor with a thump and gave her jeans a sharp yank, ridding her of them in no time. Her underwear, caught up in her jeans quickly followed suit.

“On your knees. Hold onto the headboard.”

Sam’s breath stuttered in her throat but she did as she was told. Her fingers worried the wooden slats and she hung her head, taking a deep, calming breath. “James, please…”

She wasn’t sure what happened next but all of a sudden he was there between her thighs and she could feel the coarse fabric of his jeans against the back of her legs. Long fingers groped at her ass, pulling and stroking lower and lower, his mouth on her lower back and then Jesus, shit, fuck, he slipped his flesh hand between her thighs and brushed over her clit. She moaned, long and low and arched back toward him, her fingers tightening around the headboard.

It had been a while for her, physical relationships something that she had been lacking whilst in Stanley’s care and she quickly found herself panting, head hung low as he worked his fingers between her thighs. A scarlet blush found her cheeks at the sound of it, his fingers slick against her skin and rubbing rough circles over her clit. She moaned again, louder this time.

“Haven’t heard anything quite so pretty in a long time, Sammy,” his cheek brushed the small of her back and teeth scraped the skin there briefly before digging into the firm swell of her ass. She squeaked in shock but it soon bled into a whimper and she pushed back against his hand, the cooler metal of his bionic one light on her hip. She could hear it whirring faintly over her moans and shiny fingers gripped her skin tighter until she huffed in pain.

“James,” she looked back over her shoulder at him, shocked to see him still in the same state of undress as before he’d arranged her on hands and knees. “God, James, get naked already…”

He blinked at her, sooty lashes heavy and mouth open. He was panting and rubbing up against the back of her thighs, the denim of his jeans scratchy and chaffing her skin. He paused and she almost cried from the loss of sensation between her legs but then he stepped backward off the bed in one fluid motion and toed off his boots, shucked down his pants and slid back behind her. He wasted no time teasing her this time, simply sunk one, then two fingers inside her and rubbed the callused pad of his thumb against the puckered circle of her ass.

“Oh Jesus fucking Christ!”

He smirked at her. The asshole smirked and his tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip, eyes sparkling at her like she’d never seen them do before. He gave her something as close to a smile as he’d ever given her and ignoring her protests pulled his hand away from her and pushed two wet fingers into his open mouth then hummed, eyes drifting shut.

Sam whined, unable to look away with her fingers white knuckle tight around the bed head. He was sat back on his heels, thick thighs spread and his cock stood proud against his belly as he sucked all traces of her arousal from his fingers. She licked at her lips, the bottom one sore from biting it, no doubt bruising already and just stared at him like a starving woman would a feast. He was fucking beautiful. He was covered in a number of pale scars and his arm was something so alien to her that she could barely process it sometimes, but at that very moment her sexuality was one hundred percent ‘James’.

Her breath left her in shallow pants and she wriggled futilely, desperate for friction. “You want me to come right now, don’t you?” She was only partly serious but she got the feeling that if his tongue twisted around the wet digit one more time… His eyes popped open, dark and glittering in the low light. His hand, wet from being in his mouth settled on her butt cheek and thumbed at the warm skin.

“Oh, you’ll come soon, Sammy,” he drawled, drawing back up onto his knees and edging closer, “but it’ll be all over my cock as I’m fucking you.”

Her breath caught. “Oh my God…”

He huffed a laugh against her back, mouthing at the skin over her shoulder blade as he arranged her just how he wanted her. His skin was hot against hers and she could feel the solid weight of him hovering over her. His mouth found her ear, hand in her hair and he gave a light tug. She glanced back at him.

“Holding on?”

She took a second to process his question and gave a terse nod before she heard his muffled ‘good’ and her breath left her in a curse as his thick length slowly pushed inside her until they were back to belly, thigh to thigh.

His fingers fisted in her hair tightly, pulling her head back to expose her throat. He was still for a few moments, the only sound their harried breathing and he let out a guttural curse in a foreign language and then he moved…

Sam let out a shout of surprise as he pulled back and slammed home and her fingers held on to the bedhead tight, her grip adjusting ever so slightly as he pulled her back onto his cock and started fucking her. She grit her teeth at the pleasure/pain of it and her chin dropped down, mouth open as little unintelligible sounds were forced out of her.

Over and over he drove into her, his hips swirling with every third or fourth thrust and when he finally let her hair go she took the chance to look back at him. She almost wished she could capture the look on his face and keep it forever as something only she would see; his eyes heavy lidded, teeth buried in his bottom lip and his hair in his face, sweaty and dark. The firelight cast shadows over his body and his arm practically glowed in the dim, muscles tense.

He caught her eye and gave her a heavy look, mouth twitching upwards in a smirk as she let out a particularly sharp whine. She hung her head between her outstretched arms and looked down to where he was sliding in and out of her, a curse bubbling from her mouth as she watched herself stretch obscenely around him.

“Please, James,” she whispered brokenly, knowing he would hear her, “let me touch myself? Need more, please…” She almost sobbed when he pulled back and slipped from inside her, his cock wet and hard against her inner thigh. “No, no, no! Please!”

His hands smoothed down her sides and he made a quiet soothing noise, a sound that only then made her realize she was keening and begging. She hiccupped quietly, tears flooding her eyes.

“Up,” he urged, “Sit up.”

She let go of the bed head and sat back on her heels, watching as he sat off to the side of her, back to the headboard and he pat his thighs with his metallic hand. “C’mon,” he pulled her closer. She needed no further urging and she crawled up his thighs, taking his cock in her hand and slicking the head of it up and down her wet slit before sinking down onto him and taking him in again.

“Holy fucking Christ..” she moaned at the new angle, leaning back and bracing herself on his solid thighs as she rode him.

His hands settled on her hips and he watched through glazed eyes as her breasts bounced with each downward thrust. His hand, the metal one, slid between her thighs and skilled fingers worked at her swollen clit as she slid up and down his length until she was babbling nonsense, begging and pleading him to let her come.

“Touch yourself,” he told her, moving his hand out of the way, “Want to see you touch yourself as you ride my cock…” He continued talking to her, his voice a rough, low murmur and she flushed dark pink.

The filth that was spilling from his mouth only served to excite her more and she worried her clit with her fingers, her pussy already fluttering around him.

“Gonna come,” she panted, swearing up a storm as he began fucking her harder and faster, hips rising to meet her, hands gripping tighter at the curve of her waist. Her vision started to haze and her ears were ringing as she began to fall apart, fingers clutching at his shoulders as she came hard.

His mouth was on hers the whole time, bruising and feral as she struggled to catch her breath. She pulled free with a gasp, tugging at him until he pushed her onto her back and pushed her knees up by his ribs as he fucked her into the mattress. He was murmuring in that same language as a week earlier, guttural and harsh and he stared at her through heavy lidded eyes. She ran her tongue up his cheek and nuzzled his ear, heart thundering in her chest.

Her breath escaped her in pants, tongue tracing the shell of his ear. “Come on, James,” she coaxed, “God, you feel so good,” he bucked harder as she breathed heavily against his neck, his movements becoming erratic and sloppy. She buried her fingers in his dark, sweaty hair and tugged harshly. He groaned in response and swore colorfully, it had to be profane, it had to be, and choked out a gasp against her shoulder before sinking his teeth into the soft skin and biting down as he came inside her.

He stirred a minute later, mouth soft of on her shoulder now and he rubbed his lips against the wet mark he’d left behind. His metal fingers glinted in the light as he swept them over the mark sluggishly and she blinked at the smear of pink on them. He caught her eye solemnly.

“’M sorry.”

Sam gave him a squeeze with her knees, still wrapped around his middle and ran shaking fingers through his hair. “Don’t be,” she dropped a kiss against the pink stained pads of his fingers and shot him a bright smile.

Albeit slow to form, his answering one was hands down the most amazing thing she had ever seen.


	19. Chapter Eighteen

_“No, no, Sweetheart, like this.” Flour covered hands covered his own and long, elegant fingers rearranged his fingers until they sat properly on the ivory keys. Across the room a small child, a girl, watched them, her face lit up like Christmas at the sounds that came out of the piano. She clapped and giggled, dark curls bouncing along with the rest of her as a light jaunty tune filled the air._

_He looked up over his shoulder at the woman behind him, a wide smile on his face. “I’m doing it, Ma! I’m playing!”_

_She smiled indulgently at him and he felt something warm fill his chest then she moved away and went back to the bench top across the room, but not before she pressed a kiss to his temple and smeared pale flour across his dark hair. “That you are, James. Mama’s so proud of you.” She gave him a wistful smile. “Always proud of you.”_

He sat up sharply, chest heaving and eyes oddly wet. His shoulder throbbed slightly from the sudden movement and he looked down at it only to notice the tiny trickle of cherry red blood oozing from the larger wound beneath the metal plate on his chest. He ignored it and instead stared at his spread fingers. He could still see the powder on his skin, on both of his hands, not just the flesh one. For a moment he forgot about the metal of his left arm and he just sat there staring.

His mother. He remembered his mother and she called him James, just like Sam did.

He looked down at her sleeping beside him, hands tucked up beneath her chin and something moved in his old chest. He knew he was older than he felt and judging from the dream he’d just woken from he was guessing he was a lot older than anyone suspected. A hand moved to stroke her strawberry hair, thumb brushing it from her eyes and tucking it behind her ear. He frowned. His fingers were shaking and moving of their own accord, as if he were still playing the piano.

Sam stirred. She blinked at him, luminous green eyes shining up at him. She studied his face for a moment before she sat up, her expression concerned. The sheets fell to her waist and for the life of him he couldn’t even bring himself to appreciate the view. He was too shaken.

“James, what’s wrong?” She touched his fingers, squeezing them gently and stroking the backs of his hands with her thumbs. She looked down at them, then back up to his face, stroking his cheek. “Sweetie, you’re shaking…”

He opened his mouth to speak and choked on what he was trying to say, then to his horror something wet ran down his face. He flinched at the warmth and shook his head violently.

His name _WAS_ James. He had a name and it had been given to him by his mother. He had a mother and he couldn’t remember her name let alone what she looked like. He could see her in his head from his dream but her face was rapidly fading and he snarled at the loss. He wanted it back. It was _his_ memory, why couldn’t he have it back?

“Memory?” She quirked a brow at him, her mouth curved down in a frown. “Honey, what memory?”

He rubbed at his face furiously and pushed his hair back. “My Ma,” he calmed a little, though he remained frustrated as sin. “I dreamt about my Ma.”

For a moment, Sam looked excited for him, then her face lost some of its joy and she gained a look of understanding. “But you’re starting to forget it already…?” She carefully reached for his face and wiped it with the corner of the sheet before giving him a faint smile. “I dream about my mother sometimes too, but when I wake up she just… fades away, y’know?”

He nodded. “Yeah… I can still see her covered in flour and,” he swallowed thickly. “She was teaching me how to play the piano.” Then, something else pinged in his memory and he looked up at her sharply. “She called me James.”

Sam smiled at him, her expression soft. “Because it’s your name.”

He shook his head. “No, I,” he scowled at his hands, frustrated. “I wasn’t sure before, but I know now… She called me James, I’m not guessing anymore.”

She frowned at him now, head cocked at an angle. “You mean you weren’t sure that it was really your name?”

He nodded. “There was a nurse… She called me by name one day and then she was gone. I never saw her again.” He looked up to meet her eyes. “It felt right.”

For a moment Sam looked horrified. “What do you mean you never saw her again?”

He shrugged. “Pretty sure they got rid of her,” he explained simply. “They liked to rotate the staff so I didn’t get too familiar with anyone.”

She blinked back tears. “Sounds pretty fucking awful, James.” She hugged his waist, tucking herself beneath his heavy arm until he draped it over her and ran fingers up the notches of her spine. She looked up at him, eyes bright. “Tell me what you remember about your mother?”

 

**

 

She was perched on top of him, her lip caught in her teeth as she looped the needle through the torn flaps of his skin and gently tugged on the thread to sew the wound shut. It had taken him hours to convince her to do it but in the end he had taken a hefty swig of vodka, poured another glug over the wounds and physically made her start sewing. In through the edge, across to the other and out. Once she had sewed the first stitch and stopped heaving he let her hand go and she shakily continued on until she realised she wasn’t hurting him, the stitches a neat, bright blue nylon thread.

He lay back on the bed, hands on her thighs limply and he closed his eyes feigning sleep. His lashes fanned out beneath his eyes, dark and sooty and he drew in a slow, steady breath.

“You stopped.”

Sam started. So she had. She cleared her throat and snipped the end of the thread close to the skin. “Next?” She looked over the remaining cuts and ran the pads of her fingers across the gnarled scar tissue where his shoulder and chest met checking for wounds. When she was satisfied that the remaining ones were small enough to bypass the stitching she reached for the non-stick dressings and dabbed some ointment across them, taped down the patches and sat back with her hands on top of his relaxed fingers. “All done.” She declared with a grin.

He blinked up at her, eyes focusing quickly and she delighted in his small smile up at her. He had been in a lighter mood since the night before and his smiles were coming faster and easier now. A hand reached up toward her face and she leaned into the warm metal palm, eyes soft.

“I don’t,” he cleared his throat and looked away for a moment, “Good things don’t happen to me.” His fingers stroked her face and pushed back into her hair. “I can’t let you go now, you know that right?”

She nodded. “I know,” she played with his fingers on his free hand and stretched a little. “But, just for the record? You were never keeping me here, either. I could have run away any time. I didn’t have to bring you with me.”

He smiled at her, the corner of his mouth quirking into a feral little grin. “You’re so fucking cute, thinking you had a choice.” He shook his head at her. “If you’d run I probably would have killed you.”

Sam blinked. After a minute she realised he was being brutally honest. “You really would have?” Oddly enough it made sense to her but she wanted to hear his response first.

He looked mildly uncomfortable. “Then I would have,” he tugged on her hair. “Not now.” He searched her face for something before his expression grew dark. “If they come for me…”

She shook her head. “No.”

He gave her a shake. “If they come for me, Samantha, you have to run. If they catch up with you they’ll kill you. You’ll have to beat them to it, ok?”

Sam balked. “You want me to what? Kill myself if your employers capture you?! What the actual fuck, James?!” She tried to slide from his lap but he held fast. The hand in her hair tightened until she winced and her hands flew to try to prise them from her scalp.

“It’s better than the alternative, Sammy!” He barked. “If they catch you and you…” he took a breath. “I can’t promise you that it’ll be pretty. If they take you and you survive the initial interrogation I can’t even begin the think of what they’ll do to you. I can’t have them hurt you, do you understand me, Sammy? _Do you understand_?” He let her go and she slid from his lap onto the rug by the bed, tears in her eyes.

What was he implying? They would torture her? They would capture her and interrogate her until she died in their custody? What the hell kind of people did he work for?

“You’re serious.” She concluded after a minute of freaking the fuck out. “You’re asking me to kill myself if these people take you away from me?”

He sat up and stared at her, eyes sad. “You’re all I have that’s mine. I won’t let them take that from me.”

She studied him for some time and crawled back towards the bed. “Do you promise?” She asked, hands crawling up his thighs. “Never forget me?”

Something in his eyes dimmed and he sagged a little, face sad. He nodded, fingers finding her mouth and tracing her bow lips. “Never.”

 

 


	20. Chapter Nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all I am SO, SO sorry it's taken so long to update!! My laptop screen died and I've only just gotten the thing back from warranty repair - kinda hard to type and write with no screen! Fear not though, I have some stuff already written and I can post that whilst I'm busy writing new stuff :) 
> 
> I hope you guys are still reading and still with me - fingers crossed, huh..
> 
> Onward!

In the weeks that followed James began training her, at times running her ragged until she would collapse and he had to carry her back to the cabin. In the first week it was mostly from running; she had long since given up running for sport and the sheer exertion of it made her think she was about to die… He laughed long and hard when she flagged around the half mile mark, then grew irritated when he realized she wasn’t kidding. They were working on that.

Next came weaponry.

She flat out refused to wield a gun. Refused. He had tried to hand her a Glock and she’d looked at the weapon, then at him and promptly threw up all over his shoes. Too many bad memories apparently.

“Well what CAN you see yourself using?”

She looked over the barrage of weaponry on the long table in the kitchen and floundered. There were a dozen different kinds of guns, knives, batons and some kind of wires with handles that she didn’t want to even hazard to guess what they were for. She opened her mouth and closed it again.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got a tazer in there or anything?”

He scoffed. “A tazer is effective until you need to reload it; which you will. They’ll drop a three hundred pound man like a sack of potatoes but if you get flustered he’ll be up again soon enough and you’ll be _running._ Do you really want to _run_ , Samantha?”

She bit her lip in an effort not to laugh. He had a dry wit about him that was slowly creeping out at inopportune moments, making her laugh when she was supposed to be focussing on her training.

“What about a knife?” She asked, feeling self-conscious. “Would a knife be ok?”

He gave her a long look and slowly extended his hand, palm up, waiting. She reached down into the top of her boot and pulled out the knife he had given her months ago and placed it carefully in his upturned hand. He pressed a lingering kiss to her neck, just below her right ear and long fingers closed around the blade.

“Good girl.” He praised. He tested the weight of it in his hand, way too light for his liking and set it down on the table with the other weapons. “You can have it back,” he reassured her, “We’re just going to try a few others first.”

That day was the first time Sam found herself in head to toe Kevlar reinforced clothing and a stab vest fighting off her very fast, very persistent lover. At first the clothing slowed her down and he got in three kill shots in a row, but eventually, and by eventually she meant over a week later she stopped tripping over herself and slowly started to fight back. Every time she would fall down, drop her knife and curse he would take a step back, spread his hands and demand ‘again’.

She thought she might hate him by now if he wasn’t so damn talented with his hands and mouth.

His wounds had healed into thin, neat lines, dark pink against the olive of his skin and his memories were coming in hard and fast. Sometimes he would awake with a shout, chest heaving and covered in sweat. Other times he would sort of faze out and she had grown to realize those were the more pleasant memories. Ones of his mother. His baby sister. A man he knew that he knew but couldn’t place.

He dreamed of falling, screaming and blood. So much blood.

She learned that he had killed dozens of people in his life and that he was a crack shot with a sniper rifle; she hadn’t even known the mountain lion had been there until she heard the sharp crack of the rifle and the yowling of the retreating lion. He’d screamed at her, fingers tight around her upper arm as he berated her for not being more aware of her surroundings once he’d made sure it was gone.

“I’m not a super-human soldier like you, James! I can’t always hear a twig snap three clicks away like you can!” She had shouted back, pulling her arm free. He’d gone deathly quiet and stared at her.

“Super-human?” He’d parroted lowly.

Sam remembered the look of dawning horror on his face as if it had just happened. “You’re not normal, James,” she had told him. “You heal fast and you move like the fucking devil is on your heels. I don’t even hear you breathing half the time when I wake up in the night and I keep thinking you’re fucking dead!” She had hugged herself, looking anywhere but him. “It’s scary sometimes.” She admitted.

Since then he had made an effort to move a little slower in front of her, breathe a little louder and whilst he made an effort not to become injured that was something he couldn’t really help. It was a part of him, not some party trick he could manipulate at will.

Currently though they were in Boulder. She had Kevlar reinforced jeans on and hiking boots, a blade tucked into each one and a custom made knife holster strapped to her forearm, a small butterfly blade tucked neatly into it. She was growing used to carrying a weapon and now felt strange without it, naked almost. Her big pink and black plaid coat covered her well, nobody was any the wiser about her being armed and her hand was snugly fitted into James’ gloved one as they walked down the street. To any oblivious outsider she just looked like a normal girl walking down the street with her boyfriend, a wide smile on her red lipped mouth.

“So,” she read off the shopping list that she had compiled before they’d left the cabin, “-we need more oil for the lamps and-” She stumbled backward when she realized he had stopped walking, her arm outstretched. “James?”

He was staring in a shop window, eyes flitting back and forth between the multiple television screens all broadcasting footage of the same thing. She stepped back to his side, unable to escape the knowledge that his hand was tightening in hers.

“What is it?” She peered at what he was watching, squinting to see the details. It was New York and New York was under attack. “Holy shit!” A flash of blue and red flickered past the camera and then that unmistakable symbol was clearly visible. She froze. “…. Tell me that is _NOT_ Captain-fucking-America.” She muttered lowly, knowing James would hear her.

He turned to look at her, ghost pale and sweating. “You know him?”

She scoffed. “Honey, everyone knows him. Or at least ‘of’ him. He was supposed to be dead.” She shook her head in wonderment. “He _should_ be dead after all these years!”

“How long?” He asked her, voice quiet as people started to gather around to watch in horror as something inhumanly massive breached a hole in the New York sky. “How long ago was he declared dead?”

She looked at him, concerned and confused. “Nineteen Forty five, James. He died in World War 2. That was seventy years ago.”

His gaze sharpened on her and flicked back towards the screens, then he gave her a sharp tug and pulled her away from the crowd. “We need to leave.”

She stumbled after him, struggling to keep up. Her hand was still clutched in his firm grip. “What’s going on?”

He glanced back at her, slowing a step so she could catch up and started looking covertly around them as they walked. “He’s the man. The man in blue. He was smaller before. Way fucking smaller.”

 

 

 

 


	21. Chapter Twenty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so here we go - this is where we veer off from canon even more! Hang in there people, I have plans!!

Sam stopped walking altogether, her shoulder jarring painfully when he continued on down the street without noticing she’d stopped. He shot her a sharp look over his shoulder and tugged lightly on her arm but she refused to take another step. Her mouth was open slightly and she was staring at him bug eyed.

He tugged at her arm again, growing impatient. “ _Samantha_ …” He growled.

She shook her head, clearing it of the cobwebs and started moving again. She looked behind them at the crowd of people still watching the television screens and happily noted that nobody was paying one iota of attention to them or their conversation.

Once they were clear of the crowds and safely inside the car she looked at him. Really looked at him. He looked shaken, fingers gripping the wheel tightly and the muscle in his jaw was ticking. She touched his forearm lightly and peered at him from beneath a curtain of hair.

“We’ll work this out, James.”

He glanced at her as he started the truck and pulled out of the parking space, heading back out of town towards home. “There’s nothing to work out.” He supplied tersely and the cab fell quiet.

 

**

 

“Holy fucking shit..” She mumbled to herself, her fist pressed against her teeth as she stared at the computer screen in front of her.

_CAPTAIN AMERICA FOUND ALIVE!_

_STEVE ROGERS, THE MIRACLE MAN, FINALLY HOME!_

_WELCOME HOME, CAPTAIN ROGERS!_

Those were just a few of the headlines that she had found when she typed in the search information on her newly purchased laptop. The portable modem flashed at her as she read over the articles, her eyes scanning line upon line of text confirming what they had discovered mere hours earlier. Captain Steven Rogers was alive and well enough to be battling honest to god aliens in New York City. The pictures of the battle were incredible. Holes in the sky, ugly as sin creatures scuttling about the city with high tech weaponry killing hundreds upon thousands of innocent people… She was stunned into a quiet shock when she had seen them, but at present her thoughts were elsewhere.

Captain America was the man in blue that James had told her about, the one from his memories. She had googled Steve Rogers and ‘James’ and the first thing on the list that had come up was a picture of a smiling post-serum Captain America and his best friend, Sergeant James Barnes. One Sergeant James Barnes that looked eerily similar to the man she was sharing a house with. Same jawline, same face, same everything save for the great big metal accessory he liked to call an arm these days and the length of his hair.

Currently said man was sitting across the room with his own new laptop, metal fingers gripping the arm of the sofa like his life depended on it watching the delayed coverage from New York. His eyes were sharp, focussed on the moving pictures in front of him. It was the first exposure they’d really had to the outside world in months and he was soaking in everything he saw like a sponge.

“Sammy,” he groused, fingers prodding at the keys slowly, “- how do I go back?”

She pushed away from the table and moved toward him, confused. “You mean to the last page, or the last video?”

He shook his head, distracted. “I saw something. I need to see it again just to be sure it’s what I think it is..”

She leaned over his shoulder, her hair falling into his face as she clicked and restarted the video, explaining the process to him the whole time. “What did you think you saw?”

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, fingers tangling in the strawberry ends of her hair absently. “Captain America,” he spat, a sour look on his face, “-he was with someone. I need to see him again.” His tone grew urgent and she nodded, teeth catching her lip as she stroked the ball of his metal shoulder. The plates over his forearm shuddered and there was a metallic whirring sound as he bent closer to the screen, eyes narrowed. “Stop the footage.” He barked.

She clicked the pause button and waited.

Captain Rogers was on the screen gesturing out of view and looked to be talking to another man. He was tall, black hair slicked back on his head and he was wearing all black tactical gear, a huge ass gun in his hands, toothpick clenched in his teeth. He looked like SWAT, minus the protective helmet.

“Who is that?” She asked softly, her hands carefully stroking and soothing him once she realized he had gone stone still and she couldn’t hear him breathing any more. “James?”

He squeezed his eyes shut briefly and gave a minute shake of his head. “I remember him,” he touched the screen with metal fingers and the image of Captain Rogers pixelated slightly under the pressure. “I remember fighting with him,” he glanced at her, “Beside him. I remember fighting beside him.” He corrected himself, eyes closed. “There was a train… There was so much screaming…”

Sam came around and sat on the arm of the sofa, her arm wound around James’ shoulder, thumb brushing his stubbled jaw. He took a deep breath, inhaling her scent and opened his eyes. He pointed at the dark haired man opposite the captain. “I fucking remember him too.” He growled, his voice gravel rough and suddenly angry. “If he’s with ‘Steve’-” he said the name cautiously, as if to test it out, “If he’s with Steve then they must have gotten him too.”

The tension in the room was racking up another notch and becoming unbearable. “… Who got him, James?”

He looked anywhere but her, obviously uncomfortable and finally when he met her eyes the look on his face was nothing short of shame.

“You have to understand that I didn’t have a choice..”

Growing impatient, Sam slid from her perch and stood facing him, arms folded. “James!”

“HYDRA.” He spat. He looked up at her, fingers twitching and needing to touch her but she took a step back when he tried. “I.. No, no, Sammy. Don’t look at me like that, please…”

She tried to school her features into an expression of calm but all she could manage was abject horror. Her hands fell to her sides and she gaped at him, hurt. “W-what?” It came out as a whisper but going from the violent twitch James gave he heard her loud and clear.

He set the laptop aside and rose to his feet. “Sammy, it’s not what you-”

She barked out a laugh, humourless and dry. “Not what I think?! Jesus, James… Not what I think?! Tell me what it is I’m thinking right now!” She ran trembling hands through her hair and paced as he stood there looking entirely too helpless for his own good. “You’re a fucking HYDRA goon, for God’s sake!”

His jaw clenched. “I didn’t have a choice, Sam!” He bellowed back, hands clenched at his sides. “There was the train and then they had me and I didn’t have a fucking choice! They took it from me! They took EVERYTHING from me!”

She jerked at the raw pain in his voice, hands automatically reaching for him to ground him. He was bright eyed and flushed in the face, both hands shaking when she touched his twitching fingers. She frowned. His left hand never shook. Never.

He looped his fingers with hers, carefully pulling her a step closer, then another until she was pressed against his front but didn’t move for any other contact. He didn’t try to hug her, he was still cautious about initiating that sort of contact but having her warmth close helped. He touched her face, studying it with his fingers.

“I remember being on a train and then I was falling,” his eyes flickered up to meet hers, then trained themselves back on her mouth. “He was there. The Captain.” He swallowed thickly. “I thought it was him screaming in my dreams but it was me. I was dying and he was… But I didn’t die. They found me and turned me into this.”

Sam looked at him, a dawning look of wonder on her face and she took a shaky breath. “Oh my God,” she knew her history, she knew the story of Captain America along with every other person out there. “Oh my God, you’re Bucky Barnes.”

 

 

 


	22. Chapter Twenty One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap. I am SO sorry guys! I have no excuse for not updating... I just didn't realise it was so long ago that I updated. :/ 
> 
> Here's the next one!

He stared down at her, confused and deathly still. “But,” he shook his head lightly. “But my Ma called me James. How can I be Bucky if I’m James?”

“James and Bucky are the same person; Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes-”

He cut her off suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped. “32557038.”

She blinked at the sudden interruption, brow furrowed. “What?”

This time, he frowned. “I,” he paused, a vacant look on his face, “-I don’t know.”

She bit her lip, head cocked at an angle. “Do you think it could mean something?” She asked. “Something important?”

He looked something akin to uncomfortable as he thought about it and gave a light shrug. “I- Maybe? I don’t know, Sammy… I don’t know.”

Sensing he was growing agitated she held up her hands. “Ok, it’s ok.” She stroked the flat of his chest and urged him to sit down, grabbing his discarded laptop and then propped herself on his knees. “I can look if you like?”

He gave her a long, suspicious look, then finally nodded and sighed. “Go on.”

Opening up a basic google search she asked him to repeat the number, then carefully typed it in as not to miss anything. They waited the two seconds for the page to load and the results popped up on the screen. Both of them sat in silence staring at the screen, neither moving an inch, barely breathing.

When he finally spoke, he gently pushed her from his knees and headed for the kitchen. “I think I’m hungry.”

 

**

Her fingers were tangled in her hair, pulling and her mouth running a mile a minute as she paced back and forth.

“How can this be happening?” She glanced at the big man across the room, very much alive. Very much. “How can you be him? They say you’re dead, killed in action yet here you are- are you eating peanut butter out of the jar?! Seriously?? For Gods sake, James!”

He blinked at her, spoon hanging from his mouth and barely flinched as she hurled the loaf of bread on the counter at him. It bounced off the side of his head and tumbled to the floor. He snatched it up and set it down on his knee, metal fingers tearing at the plastic wrapping to get to the bread inside. “How is it you can hit me with a loaf of bread but you can’t hit a target for shit?”

“Stop making fun of me! You don’t understand the gravity of this, James!”

“Sammy,” he tried but she wouldn’t stop to listen. He smeared some of the peanut butter across the bread with the back of the spoon and folded the bread up, shoving it all in his mouth at once. “Samantha!!” He barked, mouth full of food.

She paused, hair in disarray and fingers trembling. “What??”

He set down the peanut butter jar and ambled towards her, guiding her into a chair. “I told you already, they did something to me when I…” He swallowed at the memory, sharp and clear. “When I fell from the train, I should have died. Obviously they’d done something to me before that, when I was captured.”

 

She studied him cautiously. “But, James,” she didn’t know where to look or put her hands so she sat and wrung them in her lap, eyes on the floor. “By these calculations you should be in your nineties.” She looked him up and down. “You don’t look a day over thirty, if that.” Her voice was small now. “How is that possible? How can you be him?”

He crouched on the floor in front of her. “You’d think with everything we’ve been through together, you’d be able to take this in stride, Sammy.” He stroked her knees with both hands, pleased to see she wasn’t shrinking away from him. “I don’t know if I’m definitely him, but I know I remember things that mean I could be him. My Ma called me James, I remember that but I can’t remember her or her face.” At that little piece of information her features softened into something akin to remorse and she tangled her fingers with his. “I remember him, Steve, or at least someone who looks a hell of a lot like him… God, he was a pain in my ass.”

She giggled quietly, overcome with the stress of it all. She wiped the stray tears from her face with the sleeve of her shirt and sobered suddenly. “You think HYDRA has Steve?”

His gaze sharpened and he gave a terse nod. “I wouldn’t put it past them, Sammy.” He rose to full height and looked over her head, out the window into the darkness. His arm whirred ominously and the plates rippled from wrist to shoulder, fingers clenching in a tight fist. “I have to find out. I have to know.”

**

“It’s ok,” she stroked his head as he heaved in breath after breath, damn near hyperventilating from whatever it was he was dreaming about. She wiped the sweat from his face and shoulders with a spare towel she had grabbed when she’d noticed he was becoming restless in his sleep. “You’re awake now, James. Breathe. Good.”

He shuddered against her chest, curling into her and seeking out her warmth. “So cold.” He mumbled into her collarbone, eyes squeezed shut. “Please, it’s so cold.”

Sam closed her eyes and sighed sadly, pulling the blankets up over the both of them and tucking them around his ears so only his face was showing. His arms looped around her waist and hugged her to him, grateful. This wasn’t the first time he had woken up in this state, far from it in fact. This time though he was finally able to voice what was wrong. Usually, she would end up fussing over him until he calmed and would lay with him for hours stroking and soothing, talking nonsense to him until he fell asleep again.

“What did you see?” She asked him, her voice gentle and soft against the top of his head.

He swallowed audibly. “They kept me on ice,” he said after a moment. “I remember the cold creeping in and being so tired all of a sudden.” He shuddered again. “Fuck, it burned. Everything burned. Especially when they woke me up again…”

Samantha blinked. That was not what she expected. “On ice?” She blurted out, confused. “They fucking froze you when it was convenient and defrosted you at will?”

He nodded against her chest, caught in a memory. “… Burns.”

She swore to herself and rocked him slightly, horrified. If they had done that to him then what else had the evil bastards done? “It’s ok,” she soothed quietly, humming into his hair. “You’re ok now. I won’t let them hurt you again.”

She only hoped and prayed to any God that would listen that she could fulfil that promise.

 

**

 

“God damn it!” She growled, stomping towards the fallen throwing knife on the ground. She couldn’t get used to the weight of them. “Stupid, shiny armed, trouble magnets!” She cursed quietly as she scooped up three of the small knives and huffed back to her initial spot.

“You’re over-thinking it,” He murmured in her ear, making her jump. He adjusted her fingers around the small blade and guided her arm back past her ear. “Now take a breath, let it out and throw.”

She paused for a brief moment, his warm breath still in her ear and closed her eyes. Flashes of earlier that morning filled her mind’s eye and she let out a shuddering breath. “Jesus fu-” his hand covered her mouth, long fingers warm against her lips and she darted her tongue out to taste them. He stilled behind her, warm at her back and his stubbled cheek rasped against her neck. Two fingers pushed into her mouth and she automatically curled her tongue around them. He groaned against her ear, the quietest of sounds, maybe even just a puff of air and his metallic hand crept around her hip to pull her firmly back against him.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he whispered roughly, “You think that if you can distract me we can just go have sex instead of training.” He took a step back and chuckled when she whined and bit at his fingers instead of sucking on them. He gave her a sharp slap on the rear end and smirked at her. “C’mon. Again.”

“If I hit this target,” she glanced back at him and took aim once more, “-can we still go have sex?”

He chuckled softly. “If you hit the target, I’ll let you be on top.”

She smirked to herself and hurled the knife as hard as she could towards the target.

“God-fucking-damn it!!” She shouted, stomping her foot petulantly. She’d missed. Again.

James threw his head back and laughed loudly. Despite the fact that she had missed and he was going to work her all day long outside in the cold, she smiled. At least she had made him laugh. That made it all worth it.

 


	23. Chapter Twenty Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Another chapter!

“We’re in a car.”

“I am aware.”

“James, listen to me… We are _in_. _A. Car_.”

He gave her the side-eye and quirked a brow. “ _I. Am. Aware_.” He guided the beast of a truck around the corner with the practiced ease of someone who had been driving the car for months, ignoring her for the most part.

She huffed and folded her arms across her ribs, the seatbelt digging into her neck as she slouched low in the seat and kicked her feet up onto the dash. “Last time we were trapped in a car together for a prolonged amount of time we almost killed one another.” She turned to face him, knees tucked up against the seat now. “Correction; Last time we were in the car for a prolonged amount of time you almost killed ME.”

He blinked and glanced at her. “That was then.” As if that made all the sense in the world. Which it sort of did…

She gave him a soft smile. “No killing this time?”

He smirked, downright sinful. “I never said that now, did I?”

Samantha rolled her eyes but the smile on her face never wavered. “So run this whole plan by me again. Step by step.”

He sighed, long suffering and toggled the dial on the radio, silencing it. “We are going to New York.”

“To find Steve.”

He nodded. “To find Steven.” He confirmed. He tucked a blanket she had produced from the back seat over her socked feet absently and gave her a fond yet exasperated look when she pulled out a large bag of peanut butter cups. “Seriously?”

She grinned as she popped the chocolate into her mouth and threw the wrapper into the back. “Yeah, Baby.” She gave him her best Austin Powers impersonation and all she got in response was a blank look. She scoffed. “My brilliance is lost on you.”

His mouth quirked up in the corner and she decided in that moment that if bad impressions were the way to make him smile then she was going to make at least one a day. Well, he smiled when she missed targets too but then she had the feeling that they were more along the lines of ‘oh God we’re all going to fucking die’ than ‘you’re so adorable, I could just ravage you right now’ or amused.

“So. Plan. Continue.” Another chocolate.

He rolled his eyes but went on. “We hit New York and find Steven. Recon says he’s back there and helping out with the clean up.”

“Clean up?” She interrupted again and he scowled at her. She ignored him. “Cleaning up doesn’t sound like a very HYDRA thing to do, James… Are you sure he’s HYDRA?”

“No.”

She quirked an eyebrow and cocked her head. “I’m sorry, no?”

He gave her a mildly irritated look. “We talked about this last night. We’re going to find Steven and YOU are going to talk to him.”

Queue choking from the passenger seat. She flapped uselessly as she choked on chocolate and saliva and she threw herself at him across the seats, completely forgetting she was belted in. The belt tightened painfully across her chest and she was flung back into the seat. The truck shook slightly upon impact and she coughed harshly.

“I’M talking to him? Why the actual fuck am I going to talk to him, James?!”

“BECAUSE HE THINKS I’M DEAD, SAMANTHA!”

She shrunk back into the seat and had the decency to look shame faced. He went on.

“The whole world thinks I’m dead, Sam – the whole fucking world! Everyone I had is now dead or doesn’t even remember me and Steven is… He could be HYDRA, Sam. How do I know he isn’t HYDRA?”

She unclipped her seatbelt and slid across to sit by him, thigh to thigh and hand resting above his knee on the inside of his thigh.

“I…,” she opened her mouth. “I don’t think he is, James. He was found underneath miles of ice, unconscious and in a comatose state. It took weeks to wake him up.”

“Weeks?” He frowned, confused. “Why weeks?”

She thought back to his admission of being frozen, being woken up and the pain every time. She wasn’t sure how to say it so she just blurted it out. “Because they didn’t want to potentially kill him by forcing him into consciousness again. Waking up from a coma is dangerous stuff, James.”

The look of dawning horror on his face made her stomach clench and she had to take the wheel and steer when he let go of it to clutch at his head. His body shook for a moment, then stilled again. He looked in pain until the shaking stopped and he was ghost pale.

She bit her lip and glanced back at him. “Are you ok? Maybe I should drive…” She continued steering the car until he got his bearings back and he gave a terse nod before pulling over and stopping. They had only been on the road for three hours.

He stared out of the windscreen with a carefully blank expression on his face. “Is that true? What you said about waking up a coma patient, is it true?”

She nodded slowly, heart breaking for him. There was no pity though, just sadness and teeth grinding anger at what they had done to him.

“Waking a coma patient – say from an artificial coma, it can be dangerous. There’s the chance of heart attacks and such… I’d imagine there’s the risk of brain damage too… I’m not a doctor though.”

He looked mildly uncomfortable, eyes on his fingers for some minutes until he finally spoke.

“I was always tired when I woke up… My head would hurt and my chest ached from…” he cleared his throat and stared out the window. “I thought it was from the cold. Waking up suddenly in the cryo chamber and breathing in the cold air.” He picked at his nails. “Sometimes there were patches of burns on my chest and sometimes my nose would be bleeding but the medics were too scared to tell anyone so they just cleaned me up and removed the feeding tube…”

Sam closed her eyes, hand over her mouth. He’d never shared this much with her. Never. Hell, she didn’t even know he remembered this much but then if he’d been frozen before he’d come for ‘him’ surely he’d have gone through the process in recent months so of course he would remember it… Jesus fucking Christ.

“Is that why you weren’t sure when you’d last eaten? When we first met?” She clarified.

He nodded and laughed dryly. “I don’t think I’d had real food in a long, long time before you, Sammy.” There was no humour in his tone, just sad acceptance. “I love peanut butter.” He deflected.

She gave him another soft smile. “Right out of the jar, right?” She rubbed his cheek with shaking fingers and carded fingers through his hair.

“You mean there’s another way?”

“God you’re disgusting,” she laughed despite the mood in the car and James gave her a crooked grin that made her stomach flip and kissed her palm. “You bleed all over the bedding, you leave food smears all over the place and your cleanliness doesn’t extend past your weapons… But you’re mine.”

He nodded, solemn. “For as long as you’ll have me.”

 

 


	24. Chapter Twenty Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here I am apoligising for not updating sooner - again. Life, you know?
> 
> Anyway, I'm a bit hesitant about posting this one so yeah.. let me know what you think! :D

“I don’t know if I can do this, James.” Her voice wavered and she clutched at the large bag of food in her arms as if it were a lifeline. Her feet shuffled nervously as she looked out into the street full of volunteer workers, rubble and broken glass everywhere, people shouting orders this way and that.

His hand, low on her back, gave her a light push and she stumbled forward towards the mouth of the alley. “I can’t do it myself. I’m too conspicuous.” He kept his eyes trained on the crowd. “Besides, there are faces out there that I recognise. I need to be a ghost for a little while.”

She shivered, the crisp air belying the bright blue sky. “What if he makes a scene? What if I need you?”

He looked away from the floods of people for a split second, eyes meeting hers. “You’ve never needed me.” He reassured her. “And he won’t.”

She turned to survey the street for a minute and when she turned back, he was gone.

“Fuck.” She muttered and squared her shoulders before taking the last dozen or so steps out into the crowd, joining the hoards of volunteers that were handing out lunches to the starving workers.

Nobody even noticed her appear, nor disappear into the crowd.

Green eyes searched every face that she passed, greedy hands grabbing at the sandwiches that she held in her tight grip and she smiled prettily at all the appreciative murmurs as they liberated the food from her and moved on quickly. She had to find Steve in the crowds before she had nothing left to give him.

She had almost given up hope after a solid ten minutes (not to mention she was clutching her last surviving sandwich and a bottle of water like a beacon of hope) when she ran smack into someone because she was too busy looking elsewhere. She rebounded much the same way she did when she ran into James and for a brief moment she felt sure she was going to hit the street with a hefty thump. Only, she didn’t.

Someone had caught her and from the feel of things they had caught her right around the ribs, one large hand spread out across her right breast and the other spanning her front. Her cheeks flamed and she gasped, knowing James would be watching from somewhere and mentally preparing herself to see him kill someone from afar… Again.

Only he didn’t.

“Oh my – I’m SO sorry!”

She felt herself beginning to fall again and staggered wildly, grabbing at the nearest thing which happened to be the man who’d caught her previously. She dropped the bottle of water in the process but held herself up by hanging off the poor man’s arm. His very large, very strong arm.

Slowly she looked up, blowing hair out of her face and she froze like a deer in headlights.

“Steve Rogers.” She blurted out dumbly. “You’re Steve Rogers.”

He helped her upright and steadied her on her feet, nodding slightly. “Guilty.” He was red faced and stammering out an apology before she could process this odd turn of events. She had gone over what she was supposed to say to him with James in great detail but now that she was faced with him she went completely blank.

“—and I swear I didn’t mean to grab your… that is, not that I would anyway, I mean… Not that you’re not beautiful because you are but I wouldn’t just…” He groaned and palmed his face. “I’m sorry. I feel like we should start again.” He held out his hand to her, a bright yet embarrassed smile on his face. “My name is Steve.”

She laughed aloud and tucked her hair back behind her ears, the tiny crystal shamrock earrings she wore twinkling in the sun. She took his hand and shook. “Sam.” She held up her last sandwich in one hand and held the other over her eyes, shielding them from the light. “Hungry?”

He looked at the food in her hand and a smile that could light up the city took over his face. “You’re an angel.”

As he tore into the sandwich he sat on a nearby wall and when he politely gestured for her to join him she shrugged casually and pulled herself up beside him, feet dangling a good seven inches from the ground. There was a little less debris where they were sat and the noise of the crowds faded a little.

“I used to come here when I was a kid,” she didn’t even have to struggle to recall James’ story, not now. “Granted it wasn’t so pretty then.”

He chewed thoughtfully, nodding. After he swallowed his mouthful, “Me too. Me and Bu- a friend,” he looked a little less shiny now, more subdued, “A friend and I would take the train into town, it would cost us most of our money back then for a ticket but then it was always worth it just to spend the day mooching around New York City. Made us feel like we had a damn, you know?”

She smiled, kicking her feet. “I know what you mean. My friend and I came into the city once, spent the whole week’s wages on hotdogs and malt shakes and had no money to buy a ticket home on the train. Had to catch a ride back into Brooklyn with a group of local nuns. God, my Ma wasn’t a yeller, but by God did she let me have it over that. You see, my friend wasn’t so well at the time and he spent the whole trip home throwing up out the car window. He was lactose intolerant.” She grinned, not looking at him but painfully aware that he had gone silent and stopped eating. She pushed on with ‘her’ story. “She made us go to the church the next day and detail the car.”

Silence. A cleared throat. “… _Was_ lactose intolerant?”

“Yeah, he sort of ‘grew’ out of it.”

There was a deathly silence from beside her for a moment, then he spoke, his voice forcibly light. “Sorry, what was your name again?”

She blinked at him. “I’m Sam.” She hopped down off the ledge and brushed off her pants. She reached into her pocket and she saw him tense, but when all she retrieved was a slip of paper he relaxed slightly but stood. “Thank you for the company, Captain.” She said sincerely. “It’s been a while since I got the chance to just sit and talk, you know?”

He nodded hesitantly, eyeing her critically. “Sam ‘who’?”

She slipped the piece of paper into his shirt pocket and pat it down calmly, inwardly though she was shitting herself. He was suspicious of her now which was all in the plan but despite the fact that James had assured her he wouldn’t make a scene she wasn’t so sure of it herself. He was moving to follow her, paper in hand even before she waved and disappeared into the crowd at a light jog.

“Shit.” She mumbled, striding purposefully back towards her initial location, back towards the alley. She only hoped that James was waiting there. “And double shit.” Empty. The alley was empty and she had a very large, very annoyed Captain America coming up behind her.

She stood, eyes closed and waiting for the blow to the back of the head but it never came. A hand dropped onto her shoulder and she turned, looking up at a dark faced Steve. He thrust the paper she had slipped him at her and for the first time she read it. Her nose crinkled in confusion.

“ _I had him on the ropes_ …?”

His face hardened. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me how you know all that you just said back there?” He was backing her further into the alley and she was growing nervous.

“I don’t suppose I would, no.” She replied, full of false bravado.

He frowned, surprised. “Any why the hell not?”

“Did you just cuss in front of a lady? Seriously? I thought Captain America was supposed to be some paragon of virtue, not some foul mouthed bully who backs a lady he’s just met into a dark alley way and scaring her for all intents and purposes.. Seriously, don’t make me throw a badly aimed knife at you!”

He recoiled as if she’d struck him and was just about to take a step backward when he stiffened and shuddered for a moment before collapsing to the ground. Behind him, looking down at the fallen icon was her wayward lover. He quirked an eyebrow at her and pocketed the tazer.

“Did you just tazer Captain America?! Seriously?”

He nudged the unconscious man with his boot and shrugged. “He groped you.”

“By accident! He caught me and made sure I didn’t face plant the fucking ground!!”

He stared at her and gave a light shrug. Again. “Semantics, Samantha. Semantics.”

“I thought you said tazers were useless?!” She harped as he stepped over the unconscious man on the ground.

“Generally they are, but you were taking too long.” He leant down and heaved his so called friend off the ground and held him in a fireman’s carry. “Go get the car.”

She blinked. “Crazy say what?” At his blank look she laughed hysterically but dug through his multiple pockets for the car keys regardless. “We’re going to prison. You’re going to get us killed.”

“Do I look concerned about prison? Do I?” He glared at her, adjusting his hold on the very large, very heavy man over his shoulders. “Get. The fucking. Car, Samantha. Before he wakes up!”

“I’m going, I’m going!!” Inwardly all she was capable of thinking was that he’d gone bat-shit insane. “We’re going to fucking die.”

“Get the goddamn car, woman!”


	25. Chapter Twenty Four

“How can it be so easy to kidnap a national icon?”

James sighed, bent over at the still unconscious man’s side and shot her a mildly irritated glance. He tightened the ropes that were securing the other man to the chair and handcuffed him. It wouldn’t hold him for long, but damned if it wouldn’t slow him down a little once he woke up.

“Sweetheart, I know you ramble when you’re nervous,” he said lowly, “-but if you don’t shut the fuck up I’m going to be forced to shut you up myself.” He punctuated his sentence with a hefty tug on the ropes, knotting them in place.

“Well maybe you should give me something better do with my mouth then!!”

He did a double take and stared at her, disapproving. “Samantha!”

She cringed and took a step back. “I’m sorry! I’ve never kidnapped a person before, I don’t do things like this, I am not this type of person!” She was verging on hysteria, hands flapping and pacing. She took a deep, calming breath and fanned her face with her hands. “How are we going to do this then?”

They both paused when a low, pained groan slipped from Captain Rogers and his eyelids fluttered. James darted back behind him and stood so still that if Sam had her eyes closed she wouldn’t even realize he was there in the room with them. She sat in the chair a good eight feet from the one The Captain was tied to and waited for him to come around properly. After all, he HAD been tazed more than once in an effort to keep him unconscious for longer than ten minutes. She only hoped it had no adverse effects because shit, she didn’t want to be the one responsible for giving Captain America brain damage or a heart problem.

“Are you awake, Captain?” She prompted gently, staying in her seat. She desperately wanted to believe he was a friendly, but James wasn’t sure, so she wasn’t sure either.

He groaned in response, eyes opening into tiny slits against the stark lighting in the shitty little hotel room. He roused fairly quickly once he was actually awake and he sat up as well as his restraints allowed and glared at her, his face an image of blatant anger.

“Untie me.”

She snorted, an unladylike sound escaping her and she rolled her eyes. “Yeah, no can do, El Capitan.”

He tugged at the ropes and his face took on one of surprise when he realised he was in fact handcuffed as well. God, the man was pretty but hell if he didn’t have a shitty poker face. She told him as much and he gave her a tight, irritated smile.

“I’d thank you but then again you fucking kidnapped me, so why the hell should I bother?” He couldn’t see him behind him but James was smirking now, shaking his head and had both arms folded across his chest. He motioned for her to go on and she squared her shoulders.

“I stand by my earlier statement, you know. I thought you were all respectful of the ladies and didn’t swear etcetera, etcetera?”

He scowled at her. “Captain America doesn’t, but then I think it’s safe to assume that you’re not after ‘Captain America’, are you? What do you want with Steve Rogers?” At her blank look, he rolled his eyes but stayed silent now.

Sam studied him. “You’re not at all like I imagined.” She replied after a moment, hands folded primly in her lap. She pointed at him, “You’re rude.”

James was biting his lip by now, his smirk a full on smile.

The Captain spluttered. “What the hell sort of interrogation is this?! Untie me now, Ma’am, before I get really angry.”

She grinned and clapped twice. “Ooh! Will you go green like your friend?”

He frowned. “That’s not funny. At all.”

She bit her lip, thoroughly chastised. “Yeah, I can see how you’d think that.” She rose to her feet, pacing now. “Speaking of your friends, who do they work for? Who do YOU work for?”

He blinked at her. “That’s it? You want to talk about my so called friends?” He laughed humourlessly and closed his eyes for a brief moment. “Lady, I don’t have any real friends.” He looked at his feet. “Not anymore.”

She felt for him, the pain in his voice quite obviously genuine. “You didn’t answer my question.” She implored gently. “Who do you work for nowadays? It can’t still be the United States Army.”

He scoffed. “I don’t see how that’s any of your concern.”

“Call it a vested interest.”

He studied her for some time. “Who do YOU work for, Ma’am?”

Sam smiled, pretty and oh so happy. “Oh I don’t.” She nodded. “I’m a trust fund brat. Don’t need to work a day in my life if I choose not to.”

He tugged at the restraints again, frustrated when they wouldn’t loosen even in the slightest. “Then why kidnap me, huh? What could I possibly have that you want?? I’ve been unconscious for the last seventy years in a deep freeze in Antarctica. I have no family. No friends. No money to speak of. What could I possibly have that you could want?” He was growing louder and louder with each word and James stepped closer to him, feet silent on the carpeted floor until he was right at his back. He cuffed him upside the head.

Steve’s reaction was golden. Obviously he didn’t realise there was another person in the room. His head bounced forward and he winced, swearing up a storm.

Sam smiled at him. “Now. My question. Who do you work for?” She clasped her hands in front of her and waited until finally he spat out a glob of blood from where he’d bitten his own tongue when he’d been clipped.

“SHIELD.”

She crinkled up her nose at him. “Is that some sort of offshoot of HYDRA?” She’d never heard of SHIELD. Ever.

He snarled and tried to lunge for her but a firm gloved hand on his shoulder stopped him from going anywhere. He tried to look back at whoever was holding him in place but couldn’t see past his shoulder because of the way he’d been restrained. He started swearing anew when a black hood was draped over his head and now he was confident that he couldn’t be seen, James stepped out from behind him.

“How could you even dare to assume that I would work for those bastards?!” His voice was muffled but they could hear him loud and clear through the fabric hood.

“Who are SHIELD then, Steven?”

Sam jumped, surprised when she heard the heavy accent that rolled out of James’ mouth. It was eerily similar to when she had first met him and made his voice sound a little deeper, coarser. It almost sounded as if English wasn’t his first language.

The Captain stiffened. “Who are you?”

“Who I am is of no import to you,” He purred quietly. It gave her chills. “Who you are, however, matters to me. If you do not answer the lady’s questions I will not hesitate to kill you.”

He gestured for her to continue and she gave herself a light shake. “So, SHIELD…?” She was impressed with how light and jovial she sounded, especially after witnessing the switch being flipped in her lover. She knew he was dangerous, but hearing him legitimately threaten Captain America with intent made her skin crawl.

James tensed as if he could read her mind and for a second, insecurity bled into bright blue eyes and he stroked her fingers with his thumb. She pressed her fingers to his mouth and he kissed the tips of them, a little less tense now.

Seemingly unaware of their exchange, Steve spoke. “SHIELD is a government agency, founded in the late forties in an effort to combat what was left of HYDRA.”

“Left of?” She blurted out. “Captain, HYDRA is still active.”

He stiffened and she could see his arms twitching against the ropes. “No, they aren’t. Red Skull was destroyed.”

“I can assure you, Steven. There is no end in sight for HYDRA.” James purred once more and the other man fell still.

“Who are you?” He was so suspicious now and they could hear the faint hint of concern in his voice. He had begun to shake.

James shot her a look and nodded towards the hood, urging her to take it off and he stood tall in front of the rapidly blinking super soldier with his arms folded, bowie knife in hand. Blue eyes met blue eyes and The Captain choked on his own saliva. He opened his mouth to speak but all that came out was a strangled whine.

James cocked his head to the side and tapped the knife against a firm thigh. “Steven, you have a problem.”


	26. Chapter Twenty Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential triggers, maybe? Mentions of attempted suicide.

Samantha sat in the chair furthest from their guest, chopsticks held deftly in her fingers as she picked at her food.

“I still can’t believe it.”

From his position at Steve’s side, James tossed her a bemused look. He nodded and came back to the table and sat down, metallic fingers dipping into the cardboard container to retrieve an egg roll. He chewed thoughtfully. “Yeah,” he mumbled, glancing at the other man. “Didn’t think he’d faint like a woman either.”

“Excuse me, when have I fainted, hmm?” She nudged his leg with her booted foot and shook her hair back out of her eyes. “C’mon, name one time!”

He rolled his eyes at her and plucked a pair of chopsticks from the bag on the table. He broke into the fried rice with gusto. “You’re an anomaly.” He explained. His tone turned towards one of disgust. “All you do is vomit everywhere.”

She poked her tongue out at him and tossed a sachet of soy sauce at his head. “Oh shut up. Like you never threw up in a dire situation before.”

He chewed thoughtfully. “Nope. Can’t say I have.” He made sure he popped the ‘p’ and shot her a winning grin. “Told you. Anomaly.”

She flipped him off and returned the grin. “Ass hat.” She mumbled affectionately around the next mouthful of food.

He gave her a more genuine smile and glanced towards Steve again. “This is getting ridiculous.” He said, rising to his feet. He prodded Steve with a chopstick and when that wielded no response he kicked him. Hard. “Wake up.”

He woke with a pained grunt, eyes fluttering open. “Wha-“ He looked up at James and the colour left his face again. “Bucky?!”

James almost flinched at the use of his old moniker and stepped back until he was at the table again. He sat heavily and promptly ignored Steve’s barrage of questioning. He merely picked up his container of rice again and continued eating.

Sam frowned at him, then turned to look at Steve. He looked shell-shocked. His face was pale and his eyes were a dark, glassy blue, hair mussed from being kidnapped. She snorted to herself. She had assisted in kidnapping America’s golden boy. Jesus fucking Christ. She was so going to hell.

“I suppose you’re a little bit confused.” She offered softly, standing to approach him. He sat still as she offered him an egg roll, mouth in a thin line, quiet. She shrugged. “It’s alright. I get it, you know.”

He sneered at her. “I really don’t think you do.” His voice dripped with venom and he glanced by her towards James. “Who are you and what the actual fuck is going on here?!” He struggled weakly against his bonds. “Who is he?”

“His name is James Buchanan Barnes, Steve. You know exactly who he is.” She murmured lowly. “Don’t play dumb with me, it doesn’t become you.”

He eyed James for a moment longer than looked up at her. “And you are?”

She gave him a depreciating smile. “I’m nobody. I’m just along for the ride.” She could feel James’ eyes boring holes in her back but she knew she was right. He would grow tired of her soon and disappear like the ghost she knew he was. He would only be a memory and she would be left with the chaotic mess that had become her life.

Steve scrutinized her openly. “I though you said your name was Sam?”

She shrugged. “So? Just because I said it doesn’t make it true.” She glanced back at James when she heard a noise and found him watching the floor, eyes flicking back and forth rapidly. He gave a full bodied twitch and his elbow connected with the table with a loud bang. Steve looked past her and a stricken look overtook his previously stunned features.

“Bucky? Buck, what’s wrong?” He struggled against his bonds, desperate to move towards his once friend. The chair rocked and groaned underneath him.

Samantha bit her lip and moved to check on James. “Look,” she tossed back over her shoulder at Steve, “I need you to work with me here, alright?” She muttered distractedly as she ran a surprisingly steady hand over her lover’s head. He was sweating, shaking and his breathing was laboured. He made a quiet noise of discomfort and leaned into her touch, eyes still fluttering.

“What’s going on?” Steve asked, “What’s the matter with him?”

James, Bucky, whoever, groaned and cleared his throat but his eyes stayed glued to the floor. He took a steadying breath. “I’ve sort of, maybe, been having seizures.” He murmured and both Samantha and Steve went stock still.

She stopped stroking him and her hand fell to his shoulder. “Are you fucking kidding me? That’s what this is? You’ve been having seizures and letting me think they’re just… Goddammit, James! How could you keep me in the dark like this?!” She bit her lip and stroked the stubbled skin of his jaw with her thumbs, her body shielding him from Steve’s view. “It’s from the comas, isn’t it..” she realised aloud.

James looked up at her through lowered lashes and gave a sad shake of his head. “Not exactly.”

“… Not exactly? What do you mean ‘not exactly’?”

From behind her Steve gave a low growl. “Comas? Seizures? What the _fuck_ is going on here? You were _dead_!”

James sneered and stood, looming over Sam’s shoulder, giving the illusion that she was holding him back. In reality, what Steve couldn’t see, was that she was actually holding him up. He was still weak from the seizure and his bulk leaned heavily against her. God, how many times had she done this for him and not known?

“I was _NEVER_ dead!” He snarled, spitting. “I fell offa that train into the snow and screamed and screamed and screamed for you to save me but you never came! I needed you, Stevie and you never came looking for me!” He shrugged out of his coat gracelessly and dropped it to the floor exposing his silver left arm. “They did this to me,” he flexed the plates so they rippled and whirred, “They took what was left of my arm but YOU let them!” His voice grew deathly quiet. “You burned the world to the ground gettin’ me back once, but when you thought I was dead you didn’t even try to bring me home. You left me in the cold, bleeding, dying. My Ma, Steve… My fucking mother!! She had to get one of those shitty letters from the Army… You were the Captain.” He straightened, stronger now. “It was your job to make sure everyone made it back.. It was your fault that HYDRA turned me into a damned monster.”

His stomach felt hard against her hands and Sam gently rubbed and soothed silently until he stood down and took his seat again. His right hand shook slightly as he reached for the beer on the table and swallowed down the remaining half a bottle.

“If you’d come for me maybe I wouldn’t’ve made it,” he offered, “but then I definitely wouldn’t’ve become a fucking animal hell bent of killing half the known world, either.”

The room fell into a painful silence and when Sam looked back at Steve’s face she almost crumpled in sympathy. She had no idea that James’ anger ran so deep, but then she didn’t think that he knew it did either.

Steve was sagging in his seat, face the picture of shame and anguish. He was glassy eyed once more and she could see the streaks of wetness painting his cheeks.

“I failed you, Buck, I know I did… But you’re wrong.” He swallowed at the snort of disbelief from across the room. “I sent someone to see your Ma myself. Peggy went to her door and your Ma screamed at her for losing you… ” He coughed wetly, sniffling unashamed. “When I woke up and found out that Peggy was still alive and knew where your sister was… Well, I could hardly stay away, could I?”

Sam interrupted him, her voice soft. “What were their names?” she kept her eyes on James and noted the way he’d stiffened during Steve’s reply. “His mother and sister, Steve. What were their names?”

Steve sniffed, face wet and looked from her to the painfully still James. He was confused for a moment, then a look of dawning sadness crept into his eyes; he couldn’t remember them. He blinked and cleared his throat.

“Mrs Barnes’ name was Ella,” James flinched at his use of ‘was’, “-and your sister’s name is Rebecca. She still lives in Brooklyn. I went to see her too.”

The room fell deathly silent and it was finally Sam who broke it.

“… She’s alive.”

Steve nodded slowly. “Yeah, she…” he smiled humourlessly. “She opened the door and beat me with her cane. Then she cried because I came back but Bucky never did. Told me she wished it was me. Wished I’d stayed dead.” The tremor in his voice didn’t lie. James’ sister had beaten him silly with her walking stick and had yelled at him on the doorstep of her old brownstone that she wished him dead. She didn’t care about America’s golden boy. She cared about the one who got left behind, the one who left for war with a smile and a promise to return yet never made it home again.

Sam turned to him. “But you didn’t die either, Steve.”

He laughed, a dry, hollow sound. “It felt like I did – I wanted to. Why else do you think I put the Valkyrie in the water?” he looked at his feet. “I’d lost everything that ever mattered to me so what was the point?” He looked up and cleared his throat. “So I put her down in the ocean. I put her down, laid down on the floor and waited to die.” He scoffed. “Couldn’t even do that right.”

Sam straightened. Steve had purposely put himself in a situation that he knew he wouldn’t escape just because he’d lost his best friend. Jesus, the man was either a saint or a moron. She couldn’t decide which.

“Let me get this straight,” she shook her hair out of her face and braced herself on her knees, hands clasped together. “You wanted to die, tried to kill yourself because he,” she pointed at the stoic James, “-died.”

The blond nodded silently after a moment’s hesitation. “I did.”

James cocked his head and squinted at him, metal fingers drumming against the table top. Tap-tap-tap. “Why?” He asked bluntly.

“Because even when I had nothing, I had you. And then when I lost you, literally lost you, I had less than nothing. No family, nothing.”

James considered him for a moment and shook his head slowly. “You’re a jackass.” He spat, then began muttering to himself about ‘scrawny little punks and their lack of common sense’.

Steve perked up slightly. He looked from James to Sam and gave a light tug on the ropes that kept him bound to the chair. “Can you untie me now? I promise not to do anything rash.”

Sam bit her lip and picked at the tear in her jeans. “You’re not going anywhere until he says so.” She cocked her head in her lover’s direction. “He’s calling the shots here.”

James rolled his eyes. “Rash… Fucking ‘rash’, he says. You mean like the time you threw yourself on a goddamned grenade, Stevie? You mean like the time you took all the stupid with you just because you saw a pretty dame in apparent danger?”

Steve looked him square in the eye. “You mean to tell me that you wouldn’t do the same for her?”

James sneered at him and moved closer, hovering so close that Steve could feel his breath on his face. “You so much as look at her sideways and I’ll beat the shit out of you,” he promised. A quick slice with a knife produced from god knows where and the ropes holding Steve prisoner fell to the floor.

Sam watched the two men face off for a tense minute then finally grew tired of waiting. “Oh for the love of God,” she muttered, “You already tazered him in the back of the head, James Barnes. Quit the caveman act and get on with it!”

The two men glanced at one another, then at her. Steve cracked first. “I like her.”

James shot him a hard done by look and rolled his eyes. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Yeah, me too.”

 


	27. Chapter Twenty Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go!!! I'm sorry it's so short but I have houseguests at the minute so things are a bit hectic!
> 
> Read on!

“Here,” Sam pushed a chair out in Steve’s direction. “Let me check the back of your head. He zapped you a good seven times.”

Steve shot James a hurt look and carefully sat in the rickety motel chair, eyeing Samantha as she hovered by his shoulder with a pack of gauze and some ointment. The chair gave an ominous groan and everyone stilled for a second until they were sure it wasn’t about to collapse. When it stayed standing Sam took a step closer to the blond and James’ hand shot out and grabbed her arm. He eyed Steve with an untrusting gaze.

“Sammy,” he started, then stopped at her sharp look. He looked away, shame faced at the dark glare she was shooting him.

“I’m fine, James. Steve, however, is not. Don’t be an ass.” She looked pointedly at the silver fingers wrapped tight around her arm. “Unhand me, now.”

There was a quiet whirring whine as he loosened his hold and Steve visibly flinched, unable to look away from the cybernetic limb.

Sam touched his shoulder lightly, tipping his head forward to check the back of his head and neck for burns. She frowned, guilt flooding her whole being when she saw how trusting Steve was being with her. Here he was, kidnapped by her and her lover and he was putting his back to her even after he’d been threatened and assaulted multiple times. Her fingers shook slightly as she picked through his hair looking for wounds and she paused when she found the first of many small puncture holes.

“This might sting.” She dabbed the ointment on with the tip of her finger, switching to a new one each time she found a new wound. He stiffened the first time, not relaxing at all until she’d moved away, finished with him. “I’m sorry, Steve.” She told him in a small voice, arms tucked across her ribs self consciously.

He glanced at her, eyeing her for a long moment before nodding slightly. “I understand.” He paused. “I think.”

She ignored James’ looming presence behind her and moved to sit beside Steve, fingers plucking at loose threads over her knees. She heard his grunt of disapproval but for once chose not to heed his warning. Steve wasn’t the enemy. He couldn’t be. She had seen the look of horrified nausea on his face when James had confronted him about his supposed death. She’d seen the way he’d flinched as if he’d been struck with a baseball bat when James had mentioned HYDRA and the look of intense hatred that had overtaken his handsome face when he’d realised just what was implied. HYDRA had taken his friend, vulnerable and hurt and turned him into something almost unrecognisable. A good man warped into something that was barely even considered human at times.

“It’s not your fault.” She whispered and when James snorted behind her she whirled on him and pelted the nearest thing; an empty beer bottle at his head. “James shut the fuck up, you’re not helping here!” The bottle smashed against his arm instead and there was a shocked silence that blanketed the room.

Steve cleared his throat. “No he’s right. It IS my fault. If I’d pushed harder to go back to the alps to recover him…”

“Harder? You mean you campaigned to go back there to get him anyway?”

Steve looked horrified at the implication that he hadn’t. “Of course I did!” He snapped. “Bucky meant everything to me!”

“Right,” James snarled, picking shards of glass from his shirt nonchalantly. “Because you really cried yourself to sleep over ‘losing’ me.”

Steve laughed, humourless and dry. He didn’t bother looking at the darker man now. “Of course not, Buck. It’s not like I gave it my damnedest trying to drink myself to death afterwards, either.”

James’ eyes clouded over for a moment. “You can’t get drunk anymore.” He muttered, confused.

Steve laughed, a bitter sound that was entirely out of place on him. “Look, Buck, just because you don’t believe me doesn’t make it untrue. I cried for days over you. It was fucking ugly, fat tears and snot and even Peggy couldn’t bear to look at my pathetic mug. So I drank. And I drank. I drank until I couldn’t taste anything anymore and all I could smell was moonshine oozing from every pore in my damn body.” He looked up now, eyes red rimmed and nose catching up quickly. “Then I got my chance; I remember thinking ‘if he’s gunna die, then damned if I won’t go with him’. So I did.” His voice was softer now. “But then I woke up and you were still gone and none of it was worth it… I don’t care how many lives I saved, Buck. I didn’t save yours and I’ll spend forever trying to make it up to you if you’ll let me.”

 

**

 

“You need to stop being an asshole.”

James grunted, blade making a sharp scratching sound on the whetstone. He didn’t look up. “Oh, I do, huh?”

Sam wrung her hands together nervously. This could become a fight between them. They’d never had a proper fight but it was worth it. At least she hoped it was, anyway.

“Look,” she started and paused. She opened her mouth to speak again but all that came out was a croak. She watched him as he sharpened the tiny throwing knife, thumbing the blade every so often and then moved on to the next edge. His shoulders shifted beneath the thin fabric of his shirt and she could see that his cheeks were hollowed out, as if he were biting the inside of them, annoyed.

He kept his eyes lowered but tensed when she took another breath to speak. “When…” a deep, faltering breath, “My mother was my best friend, James and when she died and left me…” much to her horror she felt the tears starting to leak from her eyes just as he paused and looked at her. “When she left me I would pray that it was all some horrible dream. She was my whole world, James. My whole world. I would give anything to have her back and get a second chance to watch her grow old, see her hair turn white with age and count the lines on her face… Make her a Grandmother.” Her voice wobbled slightly on the last thing and the lump in her throat grew thicker at the knowledge that it could never happen.

He frowned, brows drawn together and face uncomfortable. “Sammy, I don’t even know if I can give you that..” he absently thumbed at the knife and she realised what he meant. Children. He wasn’t able to father children.

She gave him a sad smile. “I know,” she sniffled. She had figured as much anyway when there hadn’t been even the barest hint of a hiccup in her cycle after they’d begun sleeping together. They were biologically incompatible. “And I’m ok with that.”

James set down the knife and tugged her closer with a finger looped through her belt, flesh hand smoothing over her butt and down the back of her thigh. She wrapped her arms around his neck and dropped her chin on top of his head.

He sighed. “You’re trying to tell me that Steve is my second chance.” He looked up at her and shook his head. “Coulda sworn it was you, Sammy…”

“No, I’m not.” She untangled from his hands and took a step back from him, inwardly cringing at the vulnerability that washed over his face. She let him take her fingers in his for a moment. “You have to talk to Steve. Really talk to him. He had no idea that HYDRA were still active, James and you have to remember that for him you only died a couple of weeks ago. It’s all still raw and bleeding for him.” She pulled her fingers loose and stepped even further away, pocketing two of the small blades from the table. She knew he would kill her if she went out unarmed. “I’m going to give you guys some space, alright? Call me when it’s all worked out.”

His face twisted into a confused scowl, teeth hugging his lip. “Samantha...”

She opened the door and waved Steve back inside then quietly slipped out, closing it behind her. She would come back later when things were all better. Yeah. She sighed and walked down the corridor towards the parking lot. Much later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	28. Chapter Twenty Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm beyond sorry that I haven't updated in so long everybody... My laptop was the unfortunate substitute for a chair and someone sat on it. The screen is cracked and I lost everything I'd written so I've had to rewrite. Hopefully this is a reasonable effort (im a bit lost as to where I was from here on - bear with me!).. I know it's short, but it's something, right??

It had been less than ten minutes before her phone, the little burner flip phone that James had insisted on, started to ring. She looked at the tiny display and frowned, cancelling the call and flipping it shut before putting it on silent and stuffing it in her pocket.

A teenager approached the table she sat at and gave her a lazy grin, notepad at the ready and bubblegum popping in her mouth. “What can I get ya?” She asked, toe tapping away as she chewed with an open mouth. Loudly.

Sam looked down at the menu in front of her and picked something at random. “Strawberry shake and a burger please.” She spoke softly and pulled her hood down. She picked at her nail polish as the girl walked off, watching her as she passed a table of what must have been her friends and the catcalling started. The girl laughed and flipped them off, kept walking and put her order in then propped up the counter with her hip, chatting idly to the next customer.

In her pocket her phone buzzed again and she frowned even harder, tears flooding her eyes. He wasn’t making things any easier for her. She knew it was James, the only person with that number was James.

She sniffled into her sleeve and wiped at her eyes with fingertips. God, what if all his problems since he started running were her fault? The flashbacks… Ok, so the flashbacks couldn’t be helped but the seizures? Maybe before he left the facility he was being held in they had him on medications to prevent them, or maybe it was something she had done? Of course if it were something she had done, surely she would remember doing so?

The phone buzzed in her hand again. Agitated, she flipped it open and cancelled the call, then turned off the phone altogether. He needed to talk to Steve, not her. He needed to stop calling her back so soon. Stubborn ass.

“Here you go,” the same girl as before set her drink down in front of her and smacked her bubblegum loudly. “Burger wont be long.”

Sam shot her a faded smile and sipped at her drink. For a moment she began to wish her life were that simple but then his face flashed across her minds eye and she stopped. James was it for her, not that she could ever tell him that, but he was the one. She couldn’t imagine life without him anymore, not after living with him for six months.

God, they’d been in the wind for six whole months.

In that time she had learned how to throw knives, her physical fitness had improved vastly and she knew how to dislocate a man’s shoulder, elbow and wrist in two swift movements. Not that she’d ever done the latter, but she knew how. She had learned how to survive with the help of a damaged man, someone who carried more emotional baggage than she ever did and still put one foot in front of the other every damn day.

He was her hero. Again, not that she’d ever tell him as much because he wouldn’t believe her anyway.

She was in love with a ninety-something year old assassin who didn’t look a day over thirty. Fuck, he didn’t even look that old.

Tears threatened anew. She knew he didn’t need her now that he had Steve around, but hopefully, just maybe he still wanted her there anyway.

**

 

Steve watched as James paced back and forth like a caged animal, silver fingers clenched into a tight fist. The plates on said arm rippled and shifted and whirred.

“Pacing isn’t going to bring her back any sooner, Bucky.”

Sharp blue eyes pinned him in place and for the first time ever Steve found himself wary of the man in front of him. He wasn’t Bucky anymore, not really. Sure he remembered details and places they had been, things they had done but he wasn’t the same person anymore. Not after everything he had gone through.

Cryo-freezing. For fucks sake, cryo-freezing. Who does that to a person? And then there was the questionable practice of strapping him into an electric chair and giving him a damn good zap whenever he acted out or refused orders.

Steve frowned as he watched James become more and more anxious. It had been almost three hours since Samantha had walked out the door and nearly two and a half since she’d switched her phone off.

“You really love her, don’t you.”

James rounded on him and fixed him with a glare. “You don’t get to talk about her. At all.”

Large hands were held up in a placating gesture and Steve shook his head. “Not talking about her, talking about you. Even before all of this bull I’ve never seen you so comfortable with a woman. Never.”

James stared at him for a long minute. Finally, “… Never?” he asked grudgingly and when the other man shook his head he dropped into the seat across from him. “It’s too fucking dangerous for her out there. She has no idea who she can and can’t trust around here. Even back home she’s nervous around new people.”

Steve perked up a little, his mouth curving at the corner. “Home, huh?”

There was a long, drawn out silence. “I killed her step father.”

“I’m sorry, you what?”

James rose to his feet and started to pace again. “He was a HYDRA plant… He was syphoning funds into his own offshore accounts and he was planning to take her with him when he finally made a break for it. Wanted to make her his trophy wife.” He spat. “Made it look like a mob hit. Fuck knows he was in with them too.”

“Well that’s not disgusting at all,” Steve mumbled.

“She helps me remember.”

A heavy silence overtook them and after some time Steve finally spoke. “I guess we have to convince her to stay then.”

Bright blue eyes looked over at him, sharp and assessing. “What?”

“Samantha? Yeah, she thinks you don’t need her anymore.”

James stood so fast that Steve even missed him moving. “How the fuck would you know something like that?” He advanced on him slowly.

“The serum did nothing to dull my observational skills, Buck. She thinks you don’t need her anymore now that I’m here and now it’s your turn to win her back. Tell her you love her – because you obviously do – and ask her to stay. Don’t be such a goddamned bonehead about it.”


	29. Chapter Twenty Eight

By the time she returned it was dark. Street lights dotted the way and she sighed a sigh of relief when she saw the truck. She pulled her coat tighter around her and hugged herself, preparing for the boys to tell her that she needed to leave now.

She tapped on the door and let herself in with the second key and was surprised by the empty room. She could hear water running in the bathroom and it shut off as the door clicked shut.

“Hello?”

James appeared a second later, towelling his hands dry. His boots were unlaced and his shirt forgotten by the bed, pants hanging undone so she could see a peek of his boxer briefs. She swallowed and tried to look elsewhere but she was unable to. Oh my, indeed.

“Where’s Steve?” she asked after a moment, her mouth dry and heart thumping rapidly.

He tossed the towel towards the small table they’d been sitting at earlier and moved toward her. “Sent him home,” he murmured, “Didn’t think it wise to arouse suspicion and have him missing.” He moved even closer. “He’ll be back tomorrow.”

She nodded mutely. “Ok,” her breath caught in her throat as his looming presence finally reached her and she caught the look in his eye. “What?”

He shook his head and helped her remove her coat, retrieving the small knives she’d taken out with her and setting them on the bed with the rest of them. “You were gone for a long time,” he commented before reaching out to run his hands over her shoulders and down her arms. It took a moment for her to realise what he was doing.

“Are you – are you frisking me?!”

He snorted. “Of course I am, Samantha.”

She scowled at him, thoroughly annoyed. “You don’t trust me?” She lifted her foot obediently and let him remove her boots to check inside them whilst she became more and more irritated by the second. “What the actual fuck, James?”

He grabbed a handful of hair and pulled her close. “It’s not you I don’t trust,” he answered, pulling her even closer again. His mouth crashed down over hers and she gasped, unwittingly allowing him access and she felt his tongue brush her own. She sighed into the kiss, sagging against him. He pulled back, dotting another quick, sharp-tooth filled kiss to her lips. “Were you followed?”

She replied instantly with a no and shivered as his hands pushed beneath her top, cool metal on one side, warm skin on the other. He thumbed at her skin for a moment and then in a move that she wasn’t expecting he slipped his hands down to her backside and lifted her against him. Her legs wound around his waist and she whimpered as she settled over the bulge in his pants. Hands grabbed for purchase and even though he’d never once dropped her before, a whisper in the back of her mind made her cling to him for dear life.

He pressed her up against the wall, hands kneading her butt as he ground into her and his face was buried in her throat. Teeth scraped skin, quickly followed by his tongue and he huffed against her neck when she tugged on his hair.

“Please, James,” she whispered, rubbing up against him everywhere she could. “Please…”

He tugged at the waist of her jeans, the buttons popping open and his hand pushed down into her underwear. He groaned into the side of her neck when he found her already wet. Warm fingers stroked her for a brief second before they sunk deep inside her and she cried out at the sudden intrusion. He hushed her softly, fingers rocking in and out of her agonizingly slow. His thumb brushed her clit and she saw stars.

“Please,” she begged, “please, more…”

“You want more?” He mumbled, stubbled cheek grazing her ear. “You want me to fuck you, Sweetheart?”

She nodded frantically, hips bucking against his hand. The pressure started to coil in her belly already as his thumb worked slow circles against her. He nuzzled her face, teeth scraping the apple of her cheek. She could feel his mouth curve into a grin.

“Alright, Sweetness,” he groped her ass with his metal hand and slipped his fingers from inside her, sucking them into his kiss-bruised mouth. “on the table.”

She fumbled with her jeans and pushed them down to her ankles before kicking them off and pulling herself up onto the table, legs spread waiting for him. His eyes were darker now and he advanced toward her until he was nestled snugly between her thighs with his hand wrapped around his hard cock. He brushed the head against her wet folds, bumping her clit once, twice and then he guided himself into her.

Sam made a noise low in the back of her throat. “Oh god,” she moaned, hands clutching the edges of the table and holding on as he started to fuck her slowly, his hands holding her thighs wide open.

“Mine,” he murmured, pulling to bring her closer. “You’re mine, Sammy…”

She nodded lazily, hips rolling against his. “Yeah, ok,” she let go of the table and held onto his shoulder, “Yours.”

He snapped his hips forward with enough force to make her gasp and the table rock onto two legs briefly. “You’re not listening to me,” he growled into her mouth, “You’re mine. You. Can’t. Leave.”

Her eyes blinked open, stunned. “Wha-”

He was closer now, as close as humanly possible and his face was buried into her neck, hand holding the back of her head to keep her from moving away. “.. Stay…” His movements slowed again to a slow, steady rhythm and his grip loosened on her thigh and the back of her head. His touch turned tender. “Stay with me.”

If she hadn’t been as close to him as she was she would have missed it completely but as it turned out she was, and she heard it. He wasn’t going to ask her to leave? Tears sprung into her eyes and she blinked them away. He wanted her to stay? Fuck, he was asking her to stay… She could barely form a coherent thought but finally she managed to voice her reply, mouth against his ear and breathing heavy.

“Yes,” she whispered, nuzzling him back. “Yours, James… For as long as you’ll have me.”

**

Sam awoke with a start, her hips aching from earlier and feeling thoroughly abused. “Shit,” she muttered, rolling towards the left side of the bed. Toward the door. She didn’t realise she was alone until she almost toppled from the bed and she caught herself just in time, fingers fisted in the sheets and hair brushing the floor.

“…James?” she called softly, no louder than she would speak normally and she strained to hear any movement in the small motel room. She called once more and listened, then finally when her eyes adjusted to the inky darkness she noticed the light shining from beneath the bathroom door. The closed bathroom door. She frowned. James barely ever closed the door for fear of something happening and needing to make a hasty exit.

She sat up and tugged at the sheet, wrapping it around her as she moved in that direction. She palmed one of the small knives as she passed the table. “James?”

As she neared the door she strained to hear anything from inside and what she heard gave her pause. Nothing. She heard nothing. Was he even in there?

She tapped lightly on the door and pulled it open, inwardly musing that an outward opening door was ridiculous for a bathroom but then she saw him curled in a tiny ball in the bathtub and her heart lodged in her throat. “James?” At first he didn’t respond, eyes closed and face a pallid shade of grey but then he blinked once, twice and slowly turned to look at her.

At first she wondered as to how he got himself lodged into the tiny, cramped space. He was a big man, a very big man, and the bath…? Well, let’s just say it was not built for a very big man. It was small and chipped in places, the enamel gone and showing black underneath. Really it wasn’t the most hygienic place to be curled up that he could have chosen. Then, “… why are you in the bathtub?”

He looked at her, eyes spooky vacant and then he blinked and life flooded back into his features. The dark circles under his eyes remained but she suspected they would be there for a long, long time nonetheless. His eyes, no longer vacant, cleared and he pressed his mouth in a firm, thin line.

“…. I had a dream.” He answered finally. “It was… Unpleasant.”

Sam set the small knife down on the counter and moved towards him slowly at first, waiting to see it he would shy away like he sometimes did after an episode. He was convinced he would hurt her, damage her in some way, shape or form and he would keep her at arms length for a little while. Not today though, today he reached for her and held her forearms as she climbed into the tiny bathtub with him, her sheet covered body on top of his and her head on his shoulder. Cold metal wrapped around her and she fingered the strands of dark hair that hung in her face.

“You wanna tell me about it?”

He was silent for some time then he spoke, voice rusty and aged. “No.” His arms tightened around her, holding her closer until it was borderline painful. She snuggled closer, pressed her mouth to his ear and stroked his face. Soon enough he was dropping back off to sleep and exhausted, both physically and emotionally, she followed suit.

 

 


	30. Chapter Twenty NIne

The first thing he was aware of when he woke again was that it was still dark. The second that he was no longer alone, a warmth piled on his side and across his belly that wasn’t there earlier in the night.

Sam.

He blinked crusty eyes open and lifted his head, immediately surveying the small starkly lit bathroom for threats. His head felt fuzzy with sleep and his mouth dry, a hand curling over her hip and squeezing lightly to ground himself. As consciousness crept over him more and more, he found himself watching her sleep, tucked up against him beneath his cybernetic arm seemingly without a care in the world. He tucked the sheet she ‘wore’ up and over her shoulder and mouthed the top of her head.

She hummed in her sleep and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like his name before she snuggled closer into his side, pink nailed toes peeking out from beneath the sheet against the black of his trousers. She looked young in her sleep, carefree and away from the weight of her world but then he was unable to forget the way she had deflated at the airport, back before he even knew her, back when her then step-father had caught her by the arm and marched her back out to the car. The look of stunned shock on her face when she’d tumbled headlong out of the car and onto the cold ground at his feet still haunted him and the way her face fell just a little when he had told her he wasn’t going to kill her way back when. Hopefully now she had forgiven him for sparing her life.

He looked down at her, his mouth twisted in a thin line, eyes narrowed at the thought of killing her as he stroked her spine lightly, fingers naturally seeking out each vertebrae as they went. He had been fully prepared to end her when they’d met but something stopped him and fucked if he wasn’t glad it had now.

She was something else, his little pistol. She let out a tiny snore, smacking her lips and snuggling even deeper into his embrace. Soon enough she would be beneath him if she wasn’t careful, already at risk of slipping down beside him and into the cold enamel bathtub.

He didn’t deserve this. This… redemption. He didn’t deserve the way she looked at him and he most certainly didn’t deserve the way she had given every little piece of herself to him when he’d given her so little in return.

“I wanna be so much more for you,” he whispered into her hair, hands gathering her up close and not letting go. The problem though? The problem was… he just wasn’t sure how.

 

**

 

“Wakey wakey, hands off Snakey,” she chirped brightly, the same way she always did the morning after he’d had a nightmare. He grunted at her, though the grin on his face was just as amused this morning as the first time she’d said the phrase to him.

“You’re a fucking charmer.” He muttered, metal arm shrieking against the bathtub’s side as he pushed the thin sheet off and hauled himself out of the tub.

She grinned at him, entirely too perky for her own good. “You love it.” She eyed him, lip caught in her teeth and eyebrow cocked. “Although if you do need a ‘hand’ I’d be more than willing to lend you one of mine…?”

 

He shot her a crooked grin. He really was in over his head with this one.

“Well--”

A loud knock startled the both of them and before she could even turn to look towards the room’s door James had her pulled behind him, a large, very pointy knife produced out of nowhere.

She baulked at him. “Jesus!”

He rolled his eyes and pushed her further back into the bathroom, pointing at the window before quietly closing the door behind him. Inside he could hear her complaining heartily about ‘irrational jackasses who needed to take a goddamned chill pill’ even as he made his way towards the door. He smothered his grin with his hand.

His girl, ladies and gentlemen. Mouthy like a sailor and pretty as a sunrise.

Another knock. “House keeping!”

James frowned at the back of the door and palmed the knife as he reached for the handle. He knew that voice, it haunted his every step and he would not, could not, ever forget it. Well, never again, that is.

The door swung open after he’d peered through the peep hole. “You’re not housekeeping and you’d make a shitty maid.” He muttered as he hauled Steve in through the door.

Steve beamed at him, still on cloud nine because his best friend was alive and well. “What? You think I wouldn’t look any good in a dress?”

There was a muffled thump from the bathroom. “I think you’d look stupidly pretty in a dress, Steven!” Came Sam’s voice and Steve smirked.

“See? She thinks I’d look pretty.”

James scowled and slammed the door shut behind him, moving the chair he’d wedged beneath the handle of the bathroom door in his haste to see who was knocking. “I don’t think so,” he shrugged lightly, “-but then again you did make a stunning show girl.” He sniped.

Steve’s cheeks turned ruddy and he blustered through his good mornings as Sam bounced out of the bathroom still clad in only a sheet. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she grabbed some clothes and disappeared again only to have James kick him in the shin.

“Eyes front.”

Steve’s focus was immediately on him. “You told her…?” The last part of the sentence, ‘that you love her’, was left unsaid.

“Later,” he replied, “Did you bring it?” A small silver thumb drive slid across the table top and hit his metal hand with a clink.

Steve frowned at him. It was the same frown he used to get when he found out that Bucky had given him an extra large portion of food and gone hungry himself. He was annoyed with him but for the life of him, James couldn’t bring himself to care at this point in time.

“Buck…”

“Don’t call me that,” he muttered tersely, “Just… Don’t. It’s none of your business, Steven.”

“You need to--”

James bared his teeth at him, head bowed low. “I said leave it alone, Steve..”

They both heard the locks on the bathroom door tumble and Steve looked away. James smiled tightly at Sam as she appeared. She already knew he loved her…. She had to.

… Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's so short! I'll try to make it up to you guys later on!


	31. Chapter Thirty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand here we go - more messing with the timeline! Enjoy!

Sam chewed her bottom lip and wrung her hands together from her corner of the room. There was something wrong with James. He’d been off all morning, quiet and withdrawn whereas he was usually chatty whilst maintaining his usual dry sense of humour. She glanced at Steve as he said something to James, the latter shaking his head with his mouth in a tight, thin line. He didn’t turn to look at her but she could see the tension radiating from him even from where she sat by the tiny space heater.

Maybe it was Steve?

They very rarely spent time with others and here they were holed up in some out of town hotel whilst the two men poured over databases full of pictures and files and god knew what else. She could recall seeing quite a few photographs – headshots of people with a bright red ‘DECEASED’ emblazoned across their faces…. James grew more and more tense with each one until finally he rose to his feet, knocking his chair over and he began to pace. He had his fingers fisted in his hair and teeth were bared in a soundless snarl.

“James?” she said softly at the same time as Steve said his name… well, the same time Steve called him Bucky for the fourth time today.

“I told you not to call me that!” He snapped. “I’m not him, Steven! I’m not your Bucky anymore!”

Steve looked shame faced and a little bit devastated and she felt a piece of her heart lurch for him. He was only trying to help.

“James?” She tried again and he turned to look at her, eyes dark with something that reminded her of the first night they met, when they were in the car and he was picking bloody pieces of glass from her head in between watching her throw up in the shower with detached interest. “Sweetie?” She tried again, refusing to shrink away from his heavy gaze. Last time she’d done that he’d moped for almost a week, refusing to touch her, go near her… It had taken some serious convincing to have him believe that she wasn’t afraid, just being cautious.

Sanity began to bleed back into his baby-blues and his voice was broken and shattered. “I killed them, Sammy.” He motioned towards the open files on the computer screen. “I killed my friend.”

Howard and Maria Stark.

Steve’s eyes fell shut and he looked physically ill. “But the file says-”

James sneered at him. “I fucking know what the file says, Steven.” He spat. “I think I’d remember killing a friend, wouldn’t you?”

Sam was still reeling whilst the two men bickered in the meantime. She knew he had killed before, hell, she’d seen him in action when he’d offed her seriously pervy step-father but being faced with two more people, being able to put faces to numbers…

“You,” she stammered, “-you killed Howard and Maria Stark?”

Both men fell silent. Steve looked at her with an expression of sheer pity whilst James looked downtrodden for the briefest moment before his face fell into a glacial calm.

He squared his shoulders. “Yes.” He narrowed his gaze on her and frowned. “If you want to leave me because of this, you’d better go now while I still let you.”

Sam frowned, hands dropping into her lap. She stared at him long and hard until she finally curled her lip and shook her head. “If you want me to leave just say so, you big jackass. Don’t fucking hide behind something you did years ago just because you want to get rid of me!”

He started. “Get rid of you? You’re the one sitting there looking like I just killed your puppy, _Candice.”_ He snapped, arms folded across his impressive chest. “You knew I was a killer!”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” she snarled. “You don’t get to do that! Did I say I wanted to leave, James? Did I??”

He scowled. Finally, “… no.”

She shook her hair out of her face and slim fingers sought out her mother’s favorite ring, the one she had taken to wearing on her thumb and twisted it around. She stared at him, completely ignoring the way Steve watched the two of them with a look of surprise on his face.

“Do you want me to leave, James? Honestly?”

He sighed after some time and shook his head. “No, no I don’t.”

She snorted. “Right, then stop being a dick and get back to whatever it is you were doing. Man up, James. Jesus.”

From behind him, Steve let out a snort of his own. “Oh, I really like her.”

**

After that the two men moved on to something else, something a little less stressful. Possibly less stressful, anyway.

Another face appeared on the screen and Steve sat at the ready, watching James’ reaction to each photograph. Each time James would shake his head Steve would move along to the next picture and wait.

Currently there was a beautiful red head on the screen, the little silver thumb drive flashing happily as they all sat in silence. Finally, “I shot her.”

Steve blinked. “Ok, you shot Miss Romanoff. Does that mean she’s a plant or not?”

James screwed up his nose and shook his head. “No, no she’s not HYDRA. Could have met her somewhere else, but I remember her face when she hit the ground, blood everywhere. She wasn’t one of mine.”

Steve blew out a breath. “Alright. Next in line then…” He tapped on the button and it was like a switch had been flipped. James went ghost white pale and his face fell into a blank stare. “James?”

He stared at the picture for some time, fingers clenched in a fist. “He liked to be on duty when they woke me up.” His voice was soft, deadly. “He broke my jaw twice that I can remember.”

Steve looked stricken for a moment until his face fell into a blank mask and Sam reached across to rub her lover’s knuckles. Fingers, both flesh and metal flexed and she watched the plates on his arm ripple as he visibly calmed.

“He’s on my STRIKE team,” Steve said after a moment. “Rollins is HYDRA?”

Sam shrugged. “Seems like it,” she tapped the space bar to move the picture along, “What about this guy?”

The man on the screen was an older one, possibly mid to late forties with a head full of dark hair, stubble on his face and a scowl that made her shudder.

James frowned as he read the name beneath the picture. “Brock Rumlow,” he said to himself. “He was there sometimes,” Steve looked crestfallen, “-but he wasn’t… Right. Pulled his punches every time and made sure I was fed on missions.”

Sam cocked her head at the picture. “Do you think he could be a double agent? Both HYDRA and SHIELD?”

“It’s entirely possible,” James said, eyes skirting over Steve’s blank face. “You writing this shit down?”

Steve quirked his eyebrow at him and his mouth followed suit. “Don’t need to, Barnes… Photographic memory, remember?”

The next face appeared on the screen and James straightened, eyes narrowed. It was a dark haired woman, slim with great cheekbones and bright blue eyes. Her expression was neutral, as were the rest of them but Sam could see the intelligence lurking beneath her cool veneer. She looked from Steve to James and then back again.

“Who is she?”

Steve studied James for a minute and when he opened his mouth to answer he was cut off.

“Maria Hill,” James muttered, eyes narrowed. He blinked slowly. “I know her.”

If it were possible, Steve looked like he was trying to decide whether to laugh or cry. “Hill? Are you serious??”

A look of cool detachment took over James’ face and he turned to face the blond beside him. “It’s not what you think.” He tapped the screen lightly, “She was next.”

Steve looked confused whereas Sam looked visibly ill. “Next? What do you mean, next?”

Sam rubbed at her mouth with surprisingly steady fingers. “On his list,” she said softly. “Maria Hill was James’ next hit.”

 


	32. Chapter Thirty One

“-innocent people, Buck! How could you just sit there so calmly and say she was next?!”

James sneered. “You of all people know that there are no innocent people in this world, Steven.”

“BUT SHE DID NOTHING WRONG!”

Sam cringed at the sheer desperation in Steve’s voice, the complete lack of understanding. She gave James the side eye and studied him carefully. He was rigid with anger and the plates on his arm were rippling from shoulder to wrist then back again though he was still sitting down.

Steve was standing now.

“You cannot go around killing people just because they get in your way, Bu-“ a furious glance stopped him. “Barnes. You can’t just kill innocent people, Barnes.”

Sam interrupted. She could see the distress beginning to build in the lines around James’ eyes, the way he sat so carefully and clenched his fists against hard thighs. “Is she dead, Steve?”

He blinked. “What?”

“I said, is she dead?”

He frowned, head shaking negatively. “No. No, I spoke to her yesterday.”

She folded her arms across her ribs and leaned back in her seat. “Then what are you so worried about? If he was going to kill her he would have done it by now…. We’ve been together for months now and he hasn’t killed anyone.”

Steve looked from one to the other and his angry façade dropped slightly so they could see the agony lingering beneath. “You’ve been back for months?” he asked lowly. “Why didn’t you come and find me?”

James shrugged. “Didn’t think it was prudent. After all, you’ve only been back for a couple of weeks.” His reply was flippant and she could see the hurt on Steve’s face.

“James,” she gasped. “A little sensitivity!”

He looked at her, eyes almost dead and cold. “Don’t talk to me about sensitivity, Samantha.’ He shook his head. “He’s the one who’s spent the last twenty-three minutes berating me for being a fucking monster.” He turned to Steve. “Yes, I’ve killed people. Yes, most of them were innocent but a lot of them weren’t. There are things I’ve done that would make you vomit on your fucking shoes, Steven… But I’ve saved lives too.” He glared at him. “I’m saving them right now.”

Sam and Steve exchanged a look and she touched him on the arm. “James?”

“Maria Hill,” he answered. “Talk to Maria hill. Tell her HYDRA are still active and that she’s in danger. The big bosses want her out of the way so they can put a plant in place.”

Steve made a sound of displeasure but fell silent at the look on James’ face. “You’re sure?”

James gave a single nod and rose from his chair. “Go talk to Hill, Steven..” He disappeared into the bathroom and the door clicked shut behind him leaving the two others alone.

She turned to look up at Steve and reached out a hand to touch his wrist. “If he says you need to talk to her then you need to, Steve.”

He stood with his hands on his hips, eyes cast toward the ceiling. “How could he be so-“

“It wasn’t his choice, Steve! None of this was his choice – for God’s sake, he didn’t even remember which foods he liked or disliked before he met me!” She ranted quietly. “You can’t possibly blame him for the things he’s done… Not if you knew what he’s been through.”

“He hasn’t told me much,” he admitted, defeated. He looked ashamed of the way he’d just reacted, a hand scrubbing his face tiredly. “Wait, what do you mean he didn’t know what he liked? Bucky’s always loved food.”

Sam frowned. “But he’s not Bucky anymore, Steve. James is a whole different animal.”

Blue eyes, so alike yet so different to her lover’s peered down at her. He gave her a sad, tight smile. “Has he ever steered you wrong?”

She shook her head after thinking for a moment. “No,” she said softly. “Not once.”

He stared at her for along moment before heaving a great sigh and moving towards the door.

“And, Steve?” she waited until he was looking at her. “Don’t trust anyone,” she said softly.

He nodded slowly then turned to leave.

 

**

She tapped lightly on the door, palm laid flat against the flimsy wood. It was quiet inside. “He’s gone, James…” She tried the handle, turning it slowly. The door swung open with a creak and she bit her lip when she saw the mass of man seated on the toilet seat, head in his hands, face pale.

“James?”

He looked up at her, still bent over with his elbows on his knees. “Is he right?” he asked after a moment. “Am I a monster?”

She furrowed her brow and took a step in his direction but stilled when he shook his head at her. “I don’t recall him saying that at all,” she said, “he not once called you that.”

He gave a short, humourless bark of laughter. “He fucking implied it, Sammy.” The look in his eyes said a thousand words. “I remember him always believing in me to the point of blind idiocy, but now? Not now.”

Unable to stay still any longer she walked towards him and buried her hands in his hair, pulling him against her and tucking his head beneath her chin. “You didn’t have a choice, James,” she soothed and stroked. “What you did is not your fault. Never. You’re a good man who was forced to do bad things.”

His arms looped around her waist, hands resting on her backside and a stubbled cheek rubbed against her throat.

“Am I, though? Am I a good man?” His voice sounded hoarse as if he had been screaming and sobbing, thick with emotion.

She breathed in the scent of him, scratching the back of his neck with short, sharp nails. “Yes,” she promised. “You are.” She tangled her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck, stroking his head and tugging at dark strands the way she knew he liked.

“How do you know though?”

She pulled back a little so she could see his face and stroked his cheeks with her thumbs. Her fingers brushed his lashes and came away wet.

“You are a good man, James Barnes. Hey, you _are_. You’ve taken care of me every day for the past five months and you treat me like a princess. You aren’t some thug, you are a bright, intelligent man who knows that we’re doing the right thing here… Sure, we kidnapped Captain America,” a small chuckle escaped him, “and we’re probably going to jail for it, but all the things you’ve done in your past you only did because you were following orders. The American Army or HYDRA, an order is an order.”

He looked dubious and she sighed, hugging him close again.

“Sweetie, I don’t care who it was that was giving you orders – if you only did something bad because they threatened you, that does not make you a bad person.”

He wobbled slightly, voice catching. “I didn’t know it was Howard until I saw him in the car…” he cleared his throat. “By then it was already too late. I couldn’t remember.”

She was quiet for a minute. “And now? Do you remember now?”

A low, mournful sob echoed throughout the bathroom.

She had her answer.

“I remember everything,” he mumbled, “From the back-alley in Brooklyn to that fucking Blue coat to waking up while they were amputating my arm…”

A wave of nausea hit her like a tonne of bricks. “… you were awake?” He nodded against her breast, sniffling quietly. “Jesus, James…”

He swallowed thickly. “Do you remember the first time I slept after we met?” At her nod he went on. “The screaming… it was that memory. Falling from the train and losing my arm. I remember snow and blood and shiny white bone. I remember them cauterising the wound,” he looked up at her, lashes dark and wet. “I won’t go back, Sammy. I won’t.”

She wet her lips and pressed a firm kiss to his forehead. With any luck, he wouldn’t have to.

 


	33. Chapter Thirty Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second half of this chapter has been HEAVILY EDITED - I wasnt happy with the previous version so i rewrote it. That being said, i hope you enjoy this version as much as the last... (March/17)

The sun was just creeping up over the horizon three days later when Sam woke and found herself alone once more. It was becoming an increasingly common occurrence. She dragged herself out of the bed and padded over to the ajar bathroom door, hands scrubbing her face as she went.

“James?” she called ahead softly. No need to shout, right? He could hear her from outside the building regardless. “James are you sleeping in the tub again?”

She reached out and pushed the door open wider, pausing as she heard the snip-snip-snip of scissors. The door creaked open and light flooded the floor at her feet, blinding her for a long moment. When the bright spots cleared she peered inside and what she saw gave her pause.

He was cutting his own hair. Correction. He was hacking it off with a shitty looking pair of kitchen scissors he had no doubt found in the drawers under the barely functioning stove.

“James,” she spoke low and quiet, “What the fuck are you doing?”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and grit his teeth, mouth set in a snarl as he continued to cut his hair off. “Blending in.”

She gaped at him. “By scalping yourself?! For fucks sake, James…” she stepped into the bathroom and wrestled the scissors off him with great difficulty. “Sit down.”

He stared at her long and hard. “What?”

She rolled her eyes and ushered him towards the edge of the bathtub. “Sit down.” She urged. “Please.”

He took a tentative step backwards then sat down with a huff. “I don’t see what the problem is,” he griped. “I stick out like a sore thumb with the goddamned arm and they last saw me with long hair so I-”

“Shit, James, shut up!”

His mouth snapped shut with a click, his teeth catching together. He sat rigidly, shoulders tensed and his fingers curled into tight fists on his knees.

Sam touched his hair, or what was left of it and sighed. She dotted a kiss to the top of his head and rested her cheek over the same spot. “I’m sorry, Sweetie,” she murmured, rubbing his shoulder with her free hand. “You just surprised me, is all – I didn’t think about them looking for you.”

He eyed her in the mirror. “They’re always looking for me, Sammy,” he said after a minute, “Why else do you think I disabled the tracker in my arm as soon as we left Boston?”

She paused. “They put a fucking tracker in you?” At his short nod she sneered and shook her head. “Bastards.” She busied her hands with smoothing his jaggedly cut hair and reached for the comb on the side of the sink. “Ok, let’s see what we can do with this.”

The first few minutes were fairly simple – comb length, trim ends, trim some more… That was the back of his head. Then she got to the sides and the top of his head and what she saw gave her pause. He had pale, silvery scarring spanning his scalp in tiny little spider webs from ear to ear. She touched them lightly with shaky fingertips and met his eyes in the mirror. “What..?”

He chewed at the corner of his mouth, eyes unwavering. “The chair,” he answered after a long moment of silence. “It’s where the electrodes were.”

Samantha blinked at his candidness, soft pads of her fingers still tracing the silvery lines. “James,” she managed finally, “-James, these are burn scars.”

He gave her a dull, lifeless look. “I am well aware of what they are, Sammy.”

Tears pricked at her eyes and she blinked them back. “Were you awake..?”

He nodded slightly. “Sometimes they gave me a bit to bite down on,” he offered as if it made it better and she shivered in response. How was she supposed to reply to that?

Eventually the silence grew uncomfortable and James sighed deeply, a hand feeling around behind him until he felt her hip and he gave it a squeeze. “I’m ok, Samantha.” He insisted, his voice gaining that soothing ‘oh my god please stop crying’ lilt to it and she realized that she was. Crying, that is.

She threw her hands up, scissors and all and laughed hysterically. “No you fucking aren’t, James! You have moments where you’re some kind of blank robot and don’t even get me started on the seizures! You’re not ok sometimes and..” she paused, taking a deep calming breath, “-and if they had just kept their hands to themselves and left you alone…”

He frowned up at her, hand still stroking her hip through the thin pajama pants she had on. “If they’d left me alone, Sammy, if they had never found me then I wouldn’t have found you.” He admitted uncomfortably, face vulnerable and open.

Sam sniffed wetly, rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palm and cracked a small, sad smile. “But was it worth it?”

He narrowed his eyes at her and squeezed her hip once more. “Every minute.”

 

**

“-so cute, playing happy families with your mark.”

Sam blinked her eyes open sluggishly, her head throbbing as the light crept in from all corners of the room. There were feet by her face, thick soled heavy boots level with her eyes. There was a man standing by her head and across the room James stood stone still like a statue, eyes burning into the stranger, his face eerily blank.

She struggled to recollect how she had ended up on the floor but all she could recall was walking ahead of James and looking back over her shoulder to smile at him as she’d pushed the door open and then pain and darkness. She didn’t remember James’ snarl or the click of a gun aimed in her direction, she didn’t even remember hitting the floor.

There was blood oozing from her forehead and nose.

Right, she thought as she listened half-heartedly to the stranger taunting James, what the hell is going on? She wriggled her toes in her boots and her finger twitched but that was the only movement she allowed herself. The boots moved out of her line of sight and then she could see the back of black clad legs.

He was in front of her.

He had put his back to her.

Her brain scrambled to remember what James had taught her in their many lessons, but all she could remember was how they usually ended up naked and up against the nearest solid surface, lessons forgotten. Fuck, she thought, what to do, what to do?

The man in front of her said something to James, she couldn’t hear him, her head was too fuzzy and James took a snarling step closer, fists clenched. The stranger’s hands rose, gun held aloft in her direction and he tutted loudly.

“Now, now, she’s way too pretty to shoot, don’t you think?” He hummed as James stilled. “Uh huh, that’s right… You come any closer and I shoot your little pet.” A dry, hollow laugh. “Or is it the other way around, hmm? Are you her pet? Her asset?”

Sam blinked up at the back of his legs, fingers curled loosely despite the brewing fury in her gut. Her limbs were tingling with pins and needles and her eyes grew wet at the mere mention of the word ‘asset’. This man was one of the ones who James had been running from, she knew it. He was one of the ones who had spent so many years tearing him to pieces for their own gain. That rat-bastard.

He was rocking on his heels, saying awful, terrible things to James and it was as he rocked toward him to say something particularly vulgar that she saw it; the shiny chrome hilt of a knife in the side of his boot.

Her fingers twitched minutely and then she was moving faster than she ever thought she could. Fingers wrapped around the hilt and she tugged it free of the man’s boot, flipping it over and burying it into the top of his foot. It slid through the thick leather like a hot blade through butter and the man let out a shrill cry as it drove through the top of his foot. She felt the thud as it met the floor.

“You stupid whore!” He snarled, spinning and bending to reach for her but she was already moving again. Her fingers gripped, pulled and twirled the knife so it was facing upwards and she slammed it home into his shoulder… Or it was meant to be his shoulder. He was still moving and had bent even closer by now and instead of his shoulder the blade sunk deep into his face, just beneath his eye socket.

He screamed but she kept pushing, slamming the heel of her palm into the hilt and jamming the knife up into his eye until there was no blade left on the outside of his body. The man’s scream died off suddenly and he faltered, stumbled and started to convulse as he fell on top of her.

She let out a strangled whine and struggled to get out from underneath him. “Get him off, get him off, get him off!!” She chanted and wriggled, panicking. His weight was lifted off her almost immediately and his body slumped to the floor, a wet stain already growing beneath his face on the carpet.

Hands reached for her and for a moment Sam forgot that the only other person in the room with her now was James. She screamed.

“It’s me! Sammy, it’s me!” Metal curled around her arm and tugged and she was on her feet, swaying and crying. “It’s me.” He soothed.

She threw herself into his arms and sobbed, not daring look back at the mess on the floor behind her. James’ fingers tangled in her hair and he dragged her closer, murmuring praise and telling her how good she was.

“That’s my girl,” he soothed. “My good girl. You did such a good job, Sweetheart.”

She let out a wet, startled snort. “You.. n-never told me… he w-would twitch..” she hiccupped, face buried in his broad chest. Warm arms curled around her and lifted her off the floor, her legs automatically curling around his waist.

He ignored her last comment. “There’s my girl…” he whispered as she clung to him and reached down to retrieve the bug-out bags by the door. “We need to go, ok, Sammy? We need to leave. Now.”

 

 

 


	34. AUTHORS NOTE

So.. Hi! 

First of all i'd like to thank anyone who is still reading this little piece of work - i haven't abandoned it, life just gets in the way sometimes, you know? Anyway, if you're interested i have updated/edited the crap out of the latter half of the previous chapter... So go read! 

... please? 

Let me know what you guys think!


	35. Chapter Thirty Three

James glanced at her out of the corner of his eye as he drove, light bouncing off the exposed portion of his arm and flickering across her face.

“Talk to me, Sammy,” he kept his eyes on the road but he could hear the hitch in her breathing. She was distressed.

There was a moments silence and then she sniffed softly. “What do you want me to say?” she wiped at her face and stared at the tacky blood on her fingertips for a second before scrubbing it off on the leg of her pants. “H-he was dead, James… Dead. I killed him.” Her eyes glittered in the low light, lip trembling as she held back tears. “How do I get past that?”

He reached for her hand blindly and ignored her flinch, a piece of him curling up inside and dying at her show of fear. His fingers looped around her limp hand. “He was going to kill you, Sweetheart, alright? You did the right thing.”

“I was aiming for his shoulder!!”

He blinked slowly, unsurprised. “Yeah, I thought as much,” he shot her a wry grin and then sobered. “Look, Sammy,” he took a breath. “He wanted me to kill you. He was trying to crack through my conditioning…”

She made a strangled sound, fingers squeezing his hand finally. “Why would he make you kill me when he could have done it himself?” A look of horror crossed over her face when his jaw ticked and he chewed his lip. “He wanted to hurt you…” she realized aloud.

“Killing you would have killed me, Sammy… If you were gone…” he swallowed thickly, his mind’s eye supplying him with an image of her dead and sprawled on the floor by his hand. His stomach turned.

She sniffled quietly and rubbed his hand between hers, lifting the flesh fingers to her mouth and kissing his knuckles. “Does it get easier?” She asked after a moment.

His jaw ticked. “No,” he answered softly, “-no, it doesn’t.”

 

**

 

She was getting worse.

Her trembling hands had progressed a full bodied shake, her teeth were chattering and she wasn’t talking to him anymore.

“Don’t do this to me, Samantha,” he muttered gruffly, shaking her slightly against his side as they sat in the dark corner of the park, waiting. “C’mon sweetheart…”

“Jesus, Buck..”

James remained seated, his flesh arm rubbing her to keep her warm. “She needs your help.”

Steve looked at the shaking young woman with wide, concerned eyes. “I,” he nodded. “Of course.” He shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around her, cautiously sitting opposite James. “I’ll need to touch her, Buck.”

James frowned. God, of course. She needed to be kept warm. “Just do it…”

“Alright,” Steve wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer. “We need to get her warm, Bu- James. We can’t go to my place.”

“S’ok,” James rubbed his fingers across his mouth, “I know a place..”

**

It wasn’t until they were bundled up in the rental’s California King, men stripped to the waist and her in nothing but her underwear that Steve broached the subject.

“What happened?”

James was quiet for a moment, eyes downcast toward the top of her strawberry head. “They found us…” he dropped a light kiss to her hair and cleared his throat. “HYDRA found us and she killed to save us.” He frowned. “To save me.”

Steve looked stricken, shuffling closer to his once-best friend instinctively, sandwiching the quiet Sam between them and a large, flat palm spread across James’ ribs. The dark haired man flinched but said nothing and Steve looked down at the now slumbering woman.

“Has she thrown up yet?”

James smirked humorlessly. “S’about the only time she hasn’t.” He looked up at Steve. “She’s a hurler.”

Steve smiled softly. “It’s not a bad thing, James. Not at all.”

The smile faded from James’ face and he blinked furiously. “She – I’ve never killed anyone the way she did it.” He choked. “God, Steve, she was stuck underneath him and I froze. I fucking froze.” He was so overwhelmed that he didn’t even notice Steve’s hand rubbing small circles on his back and the soft words of comfort.

“S’ok Buck… She’s alright. You’re alright, you got her out. Don’t cry.” He sounded so pained that it made James give a full bodied flinch and the memories swept over him. “… Please don’t cry…”

Steve going out of his way to bring him food at the docks when in reality Steve himself probably went hungry to do so…

Steve being his rock when his father had died…

Steve shoving all the hurt and pain from his own mother’s death aside to make sure that his best friend was coping with the loss of his second mother…

Steve.

He remembered Steve.

God, there was no way he could be HYDRA.

“I’m sorry I tazed you in the back of the head,” he mumbled, “-all nine times.”

He huffed and moved to rub his head. “God, you’re an asshole.”

James blinked, sniffling. “I had to be sure you’d come with us.”

Steve gave him a lopsided grin, albeit a sad one. “If you think I’d need to be incapacitated to go anywhere with you, Buck… I’m with you, ok? To the end of the line.” He cleared his throat. “Wherever and whenever that may be.”

 

 

 

 


	36. Chapter Thirty Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter, but a chapter nonetheless!! Thank you for all the amazing reviews/messages/kudos!

When Sam woke up a few hours later she was sandwiched between two furnaces, or at least it felt a little bit that way. She wriggled her toes, toasty warm and lifted a hand to rub her eyes.

There were scrapings of blood still underneath her fingernails.

“Ohmygod,” she muttered softly, staring at what was undoubtedly left of her encounter with the HYDRA goon. She stared at it for a moment, the dark brown stains under her nails blooming across her hands and up to her wrist. Her stomach rolled violently.

“Move,” she mumbled sharply, shoving at the arms around her desperately until they loosened and she made a run for the bathroom. Or tried to find the bathroom, at least. She stopped short in the middle of the unfamiliar room and looked around wildly. “Where the fuck is the bathroom?!”

“Down the hall to the left.” Came a startled familiar voice.

Was that Steve? Jesus, she didn’t have time to over think things right now. She ran for the bathroom and as soon as her feet hit the tiles she lunged for the nearest porcelain receptacle (the bathtub) and vomited.

Warm hands brushed her hair back from her face and a cool wash cloth magically appeared on the back of her neck. She threw up again until her stomach was empty and there was nothing left but bile and a sore throat.

“You’re alright,” Steve was at her side, holding her hair back into a pony tail with one hand and stroking her upper back with the other. “All done?”

She nodded mutely. Where had he come from? She was confused.

He helped her to her feet and gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “Why don’t you go back to bed and I’ll clean this up, alright? Go on.”

She looked up at him, confused and a little guilty. She’d misjudged him somewhere along the way, she realized. “Steve, that’s disgusting. I’ll clean it up.” She looked over the bathroom and noticed that she had missed the tub at some point and there was a puddle on the floor. Shit.

He nudged her out the door. “I’m good, Sam, honest. Go back to James. I’ll be out in a minute.”

She hand-walked her way along the wall back towards the bedroom and her stomach felt like she’d swallowed a lead balloon. Her head was fuzzy and she was still cold everywhere save for her feet. They were warm. When she got to the bedroom James was waiting for her with a bowl and cloth, topless and sleep-rumpled.

“Hi.” She mumbled, embarrassed.

He shot her a soft smile and reached for her. “Hey,” he crooked his fingers, “C’mere.”

Sam took a faltering step closer to him and looked back over her shoulder, fingers outstretched toward her lover. “Where did he come from?” she asked about Steve as James tugged her into his lap.

“He’s been here all night.” He told her, dipping her fingers into the tepid water and beginning to scrub at her nails with the cloth. “I thought you were going to…” he swallowed thickly. “He helped me keep you warm and safe.” He scrubbed at her nails, agitated. “I thought I’d got it all last night.”

Sam chewed her lip. “It’s alright, James..”

“No, it’s not.” He snarled. “It’s my fault that this all happened and if it weren’t for me-“

She interrupted him. “If it weren’t for you I’d be dead, James Buchanan Barnes. If you hadn’t showed me how to wield a knife God knows what could have happened.” She kissed him on the mouth soundly and stroked the smudges under his eyes with her fingers. “Can you do one thing for me though?”

He blinked. “Anything.”

“Teach me to shoot? I don’t want to ever get close enough to someone to feel them die on top of me again.”

**

She stared at the gun on the table, eyes shifting from side to side and almost too afraid to look at it head on. It was a small thing, smaller than the glock she had armed herself with when James had his episode not long after they’d met. She’d held it in her hands for a split second then carefully set it down on the table where it had sat for the past ten minutes. It was lighter too.

“You don’t have to do this.”

She looked up at Steve in the doorway, shoulder holding up the wall and arms folded across his wide chest. He surged forward and stumbled out of the way as James pushed his way past.

“Yes she does.” His tone brokered no arguments and his jaw was clenched. Still so tense around his once best friend. “Yes, you do.” His tone softened.

She squared her shoulders and nodded, sniffing softly. He was so close to her that she could smell the oil he used to service his arm, something she knew he did but had never seen him do before that morning and she could smell the cheap deodorant he used as well. It was comforting to say the least.

“I hate guns.”

He stroked her cheek with metal fingers, chewing the corner of his lip. “I know.” He crouched in front of her and for the first time she noticed the massive rifle strapped to his back. The stock was peeking up over his broad shoulders and the barrel down beside his hip. He was wearing his tac pants and a tight black t-shirt underneath a red and black plaid shirt and she was taken back to the first time she met him, crammed into the shitty jeep with her head bleeding all over the place. “Do you want to wait a little bit? Maybe try again tomo-“

“No!” She took a calming breath and nuzzled his palm, holding silver fingers in her shaking ones. “No. I need to do this.”

He eyed her for a minute, eyes blue as blue and shiny. “Alright… Let’s go then, Sweetheart.”


End file.
